The Last Great Steal
by Pandiichan
Summary: Remy finds that, sometimes, getting big bucks for a steal isn't always worth the money. Sometimes the money doesn't even matter. This would be just such a case.
1. Chapter 1

The Last Great Steal

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Opening notes: My first shot, ever, at a Remmy fic, and I put it in Wolverine and the X-Men because it didn't seem to fit the regular X-Men: Evolution and I didn't want it in the general "X-Men" category because that was too vague. If I have any inaccuracies please let me know :]

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"Well hello there, mah good friend." He kicked his boots up in a homely manner upon the slanted card table and grinned under the dancing half shadows of the desolate club's few swinging lights. He'd come a long way from his personal home to meet this fellow and it was well worth the price. "I hear you sought me out, and here ah am." His Cajun accent made the man completely embraced by the darkness of his own club glower ferociously at him. Seriously? This guy was the best?

"I have," the steely voice of the client hissed out, flicking a silver lighter back to expose a limber orange flame. A long drag and exhaled smoke cloud fogged the room, the man reclining at the round green table smiled. Shadows, coverage, things like this he loved. It made him feel at home, like he was back in the Bayou. "I've heard reputable stories about you, Mister LeBeau." An orange orb watched the master thief and Remy reclined patiently. Some clients tried so hard to be suave and secretive that it just bored him to tears.

"And mah mission is?" his hands flowed around his deck in half curiosity, instead focusing on the loving brush of cards in between his fingers, he tuned himself to the client. He hadn't had a decent client in a long while, and this man was his lucky break. Surely it was something stupid because all these rich ones ever wanted was something they didn't have time to go and get themselves, or weren't smart enough to get by themselves. All you had to do was know what strings to pull…or in Remy's case, when to use your fingers. A picture glided across the table, the lamplight finally focusing on the image of a pretty, young brunette with starlit honey eyes and a charming country smile made up of tiny straight white teeth. "Oh now mah, ain't she cute? What's she got to do with you, sir?"

"I hired you," he hissed, strain of veins becoming apparent in his voice, "to do your job, not ask me questions."

"Well forgive me," Remy shrugged at the testy man who preferred to keep mystery about him, "but I need to know mah details before figuring out how to give you back dis lovely lady."

"Her parents owe me double what I'm paying you, and they haven't given it to me. So, if they want to see their little girl again, they'll give me my money."

"No offense, good sir but she don' look like no little girl. She looks more like a young _woman_." He had a good eye for that. She couldn't have been but a few years younger than he, at worst, bringing her in at—maybe—twenty, twenty-one, tops. The man slammed beefy pale hands down; undulating slabs of flesh riddled with blue veins and purple splotches. Remy adored it when his clients tried to be cute and get in his face. His fingers itched to ignite a playing card. It would be so easy.

"Just get me the brat and you'll get your money." A handful of things were tossed across the table, the picture being one of them. Remy felt pleased to take them all, he loved anything to do with stealing. It made him swell with pride and enlightening shivers dance inside himself. A business card, a folded paper of addresses, a telephone number, and random words were given to him on various sheets of torn and neglected, abused papers.

"I will see what I can do for you, sir."

"What you _will _do," the sneer beat on his back and Remy just managed a tightly coiled, thief-to-client smile of appreciation before sliding his boots off the table and standing up to brush invisible dirt off of himself.

"Sure will." He flipped the collar of his brown trench coat down and exited the club that had fallen lightless behind him. That was his sign not to speak of the meeting. His meetings never happened. Remy smiled and strolled happily down to the local bar, a half casino-styled thing, and rubbed his cards with tender thumbs before entering. To put it bluntly, he felt lucky.

After only a half-hour of playing poker he'd won almost a hundred dollars. The thief smiled; a nice start to the night. Despite his good luck in the game Remy found himself contemplating the nature of his shady client. It wasn't too often that such a flag of caution was raised in him, but this one flew high and iridescent red in his brain; the man wouldn't even give his name. By now his thief knowledge let him know when someone was and wasn't telling him the whole truth, and this man was not. And more importantly, why was Mr. Shady after the girl in the picture?

"You look less harmful den a dead crocodile," he mused, laughing at his own Louisiana analogy and convinced himself to tuck away the picture while walking away from the scene of his latest three hundred dollar win. He patted the folded picture located in his breast pocket and melted in to the midnight darkness to properly escape to the penthouse he'd won by dealing jacks over fives in a bet long, long ago. It provided secrecy, a base of operation, a roof over his head, and now, a place to store what would be one of the biggest diamonds of opportunities he'd have come his way in a while. Crashing on the down comforter in his king-sized bed the thief snuggled up in luxury before immersing himself in total darkness. This client would give him enough to quit the Thieves' Guild here; not only was this faction poorly organized, barely advertised in the traditional way that made him hunger for the loving arms of New Orleans, but he was getting tired of the cycle.

Stealing, getting paid, running, finding new client. Live for a couple more months. Try not to get caught by police, the MRD, or the other X-Men prowling in this city. He was a very wanted man, and—he found it laughable—he was a man of simplicity that belied his known complexity as a thief. Remy closed his eyes and let the snores alleviate all the stress of conning bearing down on him; tomorrow would be a better day.

* * *

Eight A.M. chimed on his wooden clock singing the jaunty tune jarring past memories, a wordless thing he could only hum, and Remy rose, eager to go ahead and jump on the case for the client while dreams of thieving retirement still seemed in reach. If he retired, Remy dared dream; he could be a professional poker player! Anything to do with cards, really, something better than having to do under-table deals all the time. For the next four hours he was in and out of whatever shops crossed his paths, showing the picture of the country-smiler to as many people as possible. Finally, one got a hit. "Oh, her?" a busty brunette with wildly colored hair and streaks squinted down at the picture as she rearranged vases of flowers for show in the display windows.

"Yeah I know her, works at a bar on the south side here. It's called _Snake Eyes_, just ask for Lydia. Tell her Natasia says 'hello'."

"Thank you dahlin', that I will. Maybe I'll drop by and give you another 'hello' sometime soon." true to history, a woman couldn't hate the charm Remy LeBeau produced. The girl smiled and shook her head as she pushed the last vase into the windowsill.

"Wonder why Lydia never told me about meeting him…he's cute!" Natasia smiled to herself and cracked her knuckles, flipping the 'We're Open!' sign over to go take a lunch break.


	2. Chapter 2

The Last Great Steal

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Opening notes: Thanks to **June Birdie** for being my first reviewer. It's much appreciated!

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**Chapter Two | Devil's Spice******

"Password?" admittedly, Remy didn't expect to find himself prowling for such a long time, or to be waiting six hours just to get into this _Snake Eyes _and match Lydia's shift. Now a password? Perhaps if this gentleman (lummox looked more appropriate) was a woman the password he required would not be necessary. The strawberry eyed thief-for-hire just smiled and looked up at the man dwarfing him by several inches and gently felt around in the confines of his jacket before shuffling the various papers he was given yesterday. Random words had been written on there, he recalled, and perhaps one of them could get him in; "Stop, sorry, no need. I didn't realize that you were with _him_." the large bouncer was looking in paranoia to either side of the darkening streets, sunglasses glinting like polished broadswords as he took a boulder-sized hand from Remy's, releasing the tiny golden business card that now concaved into itself like a wounded clam.

Scraping the crinkled piece from the concrete Remy weaved himself into the bar scene, inhaling the atmosphere of alcohol and wild music that made his ears bleed with vibrations. He could—miraculously—hear the clinking of shot glasses, mason jars, the twitter of cards being shuffled for a game. Then he saw her. Apparently his target wasn't a waitress or stage entertainer as he first assumed, but a barista, concentrating and at the same time appearing so distant as she playfully controlled swishing bottles of mind numbing poisons through her fingers. She seemed very fluid in her profession, as was he, and this made Remy curious, breaking down his promise into calculations again.

Why would that guy want a simple barista? What was she to him, an old lover? Remy remembered the fat hands crashing on the table like earthquakes by the Prowler project seeking out mutants as he breathed normal human air and scrunched his face at a bad image that could only be cured with a double shot of bourbon. "May I get a double bourbon, dahlin'?" for a second their eyes met and she quickly grasped the pirouetting bottles, quitting the trance that snared so many drunken lumps and kept them sewn to their roosts to attend to him. Now he could see her up close, the little Country Smiler, her skin was smooth and airbrushed the smallest hint of peach under the wacky strobe light neon colors.

There was no way that client of his could have scored her, not even remotely possible. Blood relation, perhaps, the thief considered as he saw similar characteristics like the innumerable blue veins running crazily through her hands. "Here you are sir." a disguised southern twang slipped out as she propelled the glass with two scissor-slim fingers to his end of the bar. Her honey eyes blossomed with brighter lemony hues as she passed, like a ghost, under a currently-white strobe light to continue what would be considered a distracter routine for the drunken patrons. "Bretta?" she called curiously to someone hidden in the depths of what Remy assumed to be an employee's-only zone or maybe a storeroom, "Take over for me…just for a bit?" a bleach-blonde with a flat chest, sexy sleek abs displayed from a belly shirt, curvy hips, and a crooked tie hanging haphazardly from the giraffe-ish neck complied and made a bulls eye by wringing the towel that had been laying across her shoulders onto a nearby wine bottle.

Naturally, being a thief, Remy wedged himself between shadow and solid black cherry wood to get to a table in the back cluttered with meaningless boxes, guarded by empty chairs, and almost totally hidden by a pressed umbrella; indicating the table was originally an outdoor-based accommodation and that she was hiding. "Hello there, dahlin'." he pulled out a seat, spun it on the pads of his fingers, and sat in it, shaking the tiny shot glass. "Can I bother you for a refill?"

"Nope, I'm off. Go away." suddenly his Country Smiler wasn't so sweet. Remy was officially intrigued, how…spicy of her to be this way. Devil's spice. She looked nice, and had a very sharp tongue from the way she spoke. His eyes trailed down the porcelain tunnel of her relaxed neck, to the dip of her unstrained shoulders, and looped around the uniform she adorned, similar to the one with the girl in her belly shirt, just minus the actually belly-exposing tee.

"Care ta play cards and get you some real relaxin' done?" he was just curious to how she acted with others. One could understand that in her workplace Lydia would be only as kind as she must because –obviously—drunken louts weren't the kindest of spirits to associate with, he was eager to see how she thought. How she played cards, then he'd know a little bit more about her. Watching people play games could tell you much about them, by body language: the nature of their eye movements, how their hands move along the square pieces, even how they'll fix their face, and how often. Size six, maybe seven, feet slid from their calm extension across the table and gently hit the floor; Lydia gave a relenting sigh and straightened up.

The pale stomach kissed the edge of the table beneath a lilac shirt as she leaned in the dead center of it, drawing Remy's eyes in with the honey moon commanding crimson tides and she relinquished the country smile. "Leave me alone, and go suck bourbon or you're going to be sucking on my fist real soon." Remy grinned at her, flashing canines and only a slice of his real smile. Oh how she played games, his fingers thrummed along the fifty-two card deck and he shivered delightfully. This would be a test of his skills. He found himself almost commenting on how she was one of the few to openly deny him, but thought better of it, and settled on analyzing her.

That was perfectly fine, wasn't breaking any rules of the Thieves' Guild. After all, she wasn't his client; the man undoubtedly killing himself with putrid cigarettes or cigars at the night club was. "How 'bout a game o' war wit twenty questions in it?" Remy proposed, separating the shuffled deck into halves. The honey-eyed barista gave a snorting laugh and shook her head, the lip she was chewing on slipping out of pearl hands and back into place. A chair was suddenly rammed in as far as it could go and Remy hissed as the chair she shoved in proved to have something that was once still on the seat.

It drove into one of his more personal areas and left him trying to either: a) kick the chair away from him, or b) move himself with as minimal jarring actions as possible. "Let's not and say we did." her lips pressed close to his right ear before she stood to her full height, something barely topping five foot six inches, and walking briskly back to the bar. For a couple of minutes all Remy could do was lean on the icy table top for comfort while watching through watery eyes the scene of Lydia resuming her post and mopping the counter top.

* * *

"Ah'm gonna kill dat client, I know it!" he preached to a non-existent choir as he finally found himself able to stand and slamming his own chair at her table back into place. "Either dat or Ah'm gonna hurt dis little woman right here, now." nonsense. He couldn't damage the proverbial merchandise or poof—there goes his diamond, and means of survival! He slunk to the back of _Snake Eyes, _emerging near a spot clear of smoke and whisky to dial a number written in sloppy, fat handwriting and finding it connected to his client's oh-so _wholesome_ voice.

"Yes?" he sounded like a real snake. Remy perched himself against the black phone and flashed a half smile to the alcohol-induced swoon of ladies nearby. Pretty things, nicer than what the devil at the bar could be, he imagined, and turned an ear to the voice escaping out of the phone.

"Now you didn' tell me dat dis girl's a sharp one. What else don' I know?" there was a laugh. Remy found himself briefly sympathizing, despite the brittle cackle, maybe this guy found out the hard way, too.

"I didn't tell you anything," he agreed, "I just told you she's a brat. And she is."

"A woman of her…degree will take a little time for mah self to be associated with. She don' trust much, you know."

"I know. So I take it your first impression didn't go well." shuffling sounds could be heard from his client's half of the line and Remmy scratched his back secretly against the edge of the bathroom door in wait. "Her parents will be coming from a conference tomorrow, and I want her to be missing by then. Trust me, it will rouse high suspicions and it'll be good for people like you. Get her gone." the line clipped off as a dial tone sung, Remy slammed the phone down angrily.

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"People like you." he mocked in his Louisiana brogue, it made him want to explode the phone, and that fat bastard. How dare he! Obviously, his client knew a little more than what he thought, so it was only fair he get that same advantage. Remy LeBeau snuggled back in to a waiting barstool and looked mildly surprised by a double bourbon sitting before him.

"You asked me to get you another one." Lydia had apparently been waiting on him and Remy disclosed any further shock from her by sipping his drink. "Sorry about attacking you, verbally I mean…you know, back there…" liquid strands of dark chocolate jerked back to the coordinates of her table and Remy smiled; lips bejeweled with a film of shimmering bourbon. Here was the Country Smiler he came to like in the picture; one developed film couldn't show as having rosy cheeks, but real life painted nicely on her face. "Just…rough stuff. Bad timing, things like that."

"How 'bout tellin' ol' Remy about it, no?" she grinned, lips thinning and stretching across her white teeth like a fleshy slinky. He smirked into the rim of the glass, licking the sharp "sauce" from the inside of it and letting pangs of fire and thirst roll through him. Lydia mopped the area nearest his elbow to keep up guise for conversation and she sighed.

"No thanks, you're a stranger."

"Remy LeBeau, dahlin'."

"Doesn't make it any safer to tell you."

"Come on now, dahlin; show a Louisiana man some hospitality, won't ya?" she slammed more bourbon down as a response. He grinned. Okay, not what he was looking for, but it didn't hurt. When her stirring motions stopped his crimson eyes drank in the contemplating face of the Country Smiler and he leaned forward a little, to catch anything she might let slip.

"Just parental stuff," she confessed to one she soon hoped to fall drunk and into the arms of memory loss, "you know…at twenty you figure they'd leave me alone. But no, I have to sit through a conference tomorrow." the towel was flung to rest on her shoulder and she straightened herself again, eyes hardening just a fraction. He watched the playful light, what could be a cry for help—for someone to know—hide itself again. "Nothing more until you get so drunk you fall on your ass." Lydia rolled her eyes and left him to his bourbon.

* * *

Herald Punter twirled his jeweled rings set in thick silver square frames around his pudgy pale fingers as he exhaled and looked at the man sitting across from him. He could be a damn scary fellow on most occasions but it was only for this man, one above him, one with power over him, that he would shatter for. It was much like being in the mafia, and technically, he was. A mafia fighting mutants, men, morals, and any sense of ethics if it got in their way. Across from him sat the _Zamochit _a Don-like character whose soulless eyes put him into a near heart attack state.

"You give your little messenger boy my memo?"

"Yes, Zamochit."

"Good." a long drag of dry smoke was sent into his face and he could only cough gratefully at the gesture. At least it wasn't a hand, or a knife, or a gun. "So she'll be gone in time for the press conference?"

"Yes, Zamochit." he felt so lost and helpless, much like he assumed Lydia to feel in her earlier years. Honestly, he'd never known the girl before in his life, in his whole four years of keeping tabs on her—if he wasn't in the position he was in and obliged to follow her—he found she didn't seem like a bad kid. Apparently the Zamochit wanted her for something. Or wanted her for someone…maybe to hurt someone. Herald never questioned the Zamochit, never dared think of it.

The flickering light in his nightclub, one that he'd had to stab a man for on the Zamochit's request, started to lose its luster in prolonged flashes similar to seizures. Fear gripped his heart in second intervals. Every time the face flashed and disappeared. The empty brown eyes blinked, refocused, watched him, and blinked again. Haunted him.

A cigar was snuffed out—half on his thumb, by intention or accident he couldn't be sure—and Herald withheld the excruciating scream of pain. "This is going to show him that he's not God." the Zamochit spat angrily, chair shooting back across the floor in an agonizing wail as he caught the stifling hot metal of the lamp overhead in a bare, meaty hand. For a full minute—half of which Herald Punter spent time being afraid to look at him—scars of torture gained throughout the years could be seen like veins, a roadmap, keeping his face together. "I don't care what you do with her, just make her stay missing as long as Senator Kelly goes on tour with his…speeches…"

"Yes, Zamochit. Of course." it was customary for one below the Zamochit to kiss his only rings as a sign of loyalty. Should one not do it, it would not matter; they wouldn't live long enough to regret it, or do anything else. The man walked out, completely blind in the shadows but the very audacity of him fueling the inability for him to trip in such a setting. Similar to how nothing but Satan could truly bring a man to pray for God. When the door shut Herald Punter finally let out a banshee scream of pain.

It was one begging of penance, announcing true pain, and—worst of all—one beseeching god for the safety of Lydia Kelly.

* * *

She smiled the southern smile rescued from the far reaches of her backwoods Florida home, enjoying the sensation of stepping out of heels and into the comfort of breezy cotton clothes. Lydia tossed the crumpled work uniform in a hamper before starting to fill a garden tub with as much hot water as tolerable. Pouring herself a Long Island Iced Tea, drinking it, giving a foot rub to the aching soles of her feet, listening to the world outside, and finally corking a bottle of Raspberry Rum she climbed into the sultry tub. It was heaven. The girl saturated her locks and indulged in the back relief while keeping up her good hygiene, staying in until the water remained icy and refused to give off anymore tendrils of heat.

Air smelling of ice and muggy city living filled her nostrils and she glowered at her room; carefully stepping out of the bathroom in her pajamas and keeping one hand scrunched in her hair, carefully crimping it with her fingers as she thought. Why the hell would her room be cold? Her windows were always closed! She turned on a lamp located on her personal nightstand, brushing out her hair as she looked around her room; furnished in pale blue, white, and silver, and admired the hypnotizing moonlight lace upon her possessions. Lydia walked over to check her window, finding the chilly air to fall on the latch and lock's poor consistency which resulted in her jarring the useless security measure until it gave way; half sending her out of the window—almost onto the fire escape—causing her to work the rusty hinges until it slammed shut properly, as it should. That's when the obnoxious red and yellow caught her eye.

_A card? _she turned the red-backed King of Hearts to face her again and traced the object delicately. Now how did a card manage to catch her window? Suddenly her neck hairs stood on end, and she found herself unable to turn around as warm hands, experienced and painful, had her caught by the mouth and pressure points near her lower abdomen. She could smell him, and knew who he was, by the way his hands moved against her clothes. That man from the bar, who seated himself at her table.

"Evenin', dahlin." his Creole accent confirmed her suspicion. His hands traced patterns across the robin's egg blue tank top and she tried to elbow him; not being able to see behind her but striking blindly anyways. Anything to break free. She didn't want to go back, not to him, and she could only assume he was why this ass was here. "Now dis gon' go real smooth, if you do as I say, no?" it was her only thought, perhaps more of a reflex, but Lydia bit down on his hand as hard as she could.

He whirled her around, fiery eyes meeting hers, the man looming over her while her shaking legs fell short like flame-consumed candles. A smile smeared his lips together as the strands of dark hair fell over his eyes, shading his face in dark tones to escape her vision. Suddenly she was recaptured, in a reversed whirl, held under his arms again. Her heart would have cried in glee of the touch, of the twisted sensuality of it all, had the circumstance not been what it was. "Now what you gon' have ta understand, dahlin, is that Remy LeBeau is a hard workin' man." a cloth was pressed against her defiantly curled mouth until the smell invading her nostrils induced her to letting them uncurl—exposed—to his fingertips and the moist cloth.

She could barely hear him now, like this was all a perpetual nightmare. But he felt real. The fingers danced down her skin as she felt her weight falling from two feet to concentrate into her left one. "An' Remy LeBeau gets what Remy LeBeau works for."


	3. Chapter 3

The Last Great Steal

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Opening Notes: Wow, thanks to the whopping **178 **hits and **115 **visitors to the story! :] Here's chapter three.

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**| The Royal Flush |**

They raised her to be punctual so where, Senator Kelly pondered as he grappled his tie for the third time in five minutes, was his daughter? Despite her being what she was, he was still soothed by her presence on stage at his speeches. God bless her, their little misfit angel, his wife, Eliza, grinned and batted his worming fingers from the tie to properly suspend and knot the clothing article as the man sighed and fixed his askew spectacles in the body mirror before him; popping his jaw and murmuring the opening sentences that people had heard since day one. He was excited to have such an avid support group on the mutant matter but, inside of himself, Kelly knew that if anyone—one person—were to ask "why?" the entire crusade of his would be for naught. People would start turning to help the mutants after seeing but few living examples, part of which he'd agitated by _accident _into going public, and gently turn, one by one.

Like leaves falling off a tree switching seasons. All of his followers abandoning ship to the ground of senses and logic. "Eliza, please call." swallowing brittle worry and sawdust of discontent the wife shook her brunette hair and dialed the phone beside her like a keyboard, punching a few buttons in excess and putting it on speaker. They listened placidly for the groggy female voice to question their motives. One didn't grace them.

"Find her, call again, redial…" alarms starting going off in the father's brain. Where was she? Eliza remained calm, forcing her nerves down, as she redialed again. The third, fourth, and fifth time yielded the same results. Senator Kelly broke out into the lobby area of the hotel he and his wife had spent the night in, only ten minutes from the park area he was to hold a conference in; live, in front of TV's, in front of millions of people, and in such a discombobulated state, it was truly horrible.

The media was ready to pick at him the second he walked out the door to scan the parking lot for her car. No celeste Honda Accord anywhere in sight; when a camera zoomed in on his pampered face he glared hard into the lens, going as far as to jab a finger in the device. "I'm issuing a personal alert," the senator hissed, getting light spittle on the camera lens, "whoever has my daughter better return her this instant or every single police and police-related force will be sent out in five minutes." a net sending hush into the sea of yammering reporters on live feeds, killing the hot bulb flashes by exposing them to raw emotion, focused on the true issue. Someone very stupid, very brave, had kidnapped the senator's daughter. "If you know anything about who did this, please, tell me," he beseeched to a new camera, re-angling tens of cameras as he strolled across the parking lot, on amble patrol as he searched wildly for his only child, "a hefty reward will be given out, I promise. I just want my daughter…"

"We're here, live, at the Lisoule Hotel and you're hearing it straight from the senator. His daughter has been allegedly kidnapped and his campaigns have unfortunately been temporarily postponed until she's safe back at home." a reporter from channel twelve narrated, pressing a black piece into her inner ear. "You're here with Nancy Carlyle and we'll give you more as this story develops." the camera cut from the live scene showing two pacing parents, military and MRD men streaming in from all openings of the parking lot to delve between the rows of cars consuming space. Helicopters could be heard mangling the air above their heads, the roar of their engines bearing down like tidal waves as air units searched the surrounding area. Of course, reporters from a myriad of other channels were trying to get quotes or comments for their station but they were all pushed aside. Only one person mattered; and unbeknownst to Senator Kelly, Eliza Kelly, or any of the reporters, MRD men, even the militia, she was in the hotel on the other side of town, on the fringe of waking in a mutant's arms.

* * *

"So that's who ya are, mah dear?" she hadn't woken up yet, but that was fine with Remy. He was content to look before having to hear her mouth. Grant it he felt a tiny sprout of guilt for coming up behind her and drugging her, but he did what must be done, as ordered. Her lips caught his attention the most, opened up only enough to get air rolling through her system; shimmering with the moisture he'd dab on her to make sure the effects of the chloroform had worn off and that she was keeping at least partially hydrated in her unmoving state. The thief could only assume she was in a safe sleep cycle now, not induced by force into a total body shut down.

For five foot six she looked much smaller lying in the bed of the penthouse suite. Like a child. Remy shuffled his cards, content on playing his fifth game of solitaire as the TV rambled on in the background, adding brighter hues of stark whites, browns, and shades of black to her serene expression of dreaming. Every now and then his crimson eyes would float to her, to make sure she was still breathing, and that he could still see the stomach rise and sink just in case he couldn't hear a particular inhale. Lydia Keller was delicate cargo.

"Is gon' be a long an' bumpy road if mah client wan's to keep ya as long as your daddy goes on tour." he was talking more to himself as he laid a red Jack of Hearts over a black Queen of Spades. "We's gon' be spending plenty of time together, though." Remy mused, shuffling through the deck again to find another move to make. Her wrists flexed, tied to the top right of the headboard; cuffs (which he used, normally, to force and keep elevator doors open) twined around an elegantly carved square-shaped stand depicting swans resting without feet. She was waking up. The Country Smiler's banana-yellow orbs flinched and focused—a mosaic of haze—before realizing the lump sitting at a table next to a shimmering television was her abductor.

A sneer scrunched her face as the growl grew from the back of her throat; Remy just smiled and held up a finger, as if to chide her, while he—like magic—pulled a large white cloth napkin with swirling silver embroidery off a tepid plate of food. "Continental breakfast on the house, thanks to our wonderful hotel. Ah'm afraid, mah dear, dis is all you're getting' for the moment." Her face showed no appreciation and Remmy sucked on the inside of his cheek in dislike, crossing his arms across his chest and letting the card fall from his fingertips, landing askew on the table. Maybe it wasn't such a good thing they'd be spending so much time together. No matter, there wasn't a woman yet that Remy LeBeau couldn't win over, and she would be no different, just more challenging and that was perfectly fine. He liked a good challenge.

From the depth of his closest breast pocket came the key he used to dislodge the cuffs; and he angled his body over hers as he undid the apparatus in case she tried to bolt. Couldn't have his prized diamond running off. She was fevered from sleep, the extra body heat radiating from her touch as he finally backed off from the close quarters when the cuffs were once again in his hands. "Why'd you kidnap me you uncouth pain?" she spat, trying not to shiver under the grinning ruby eyes as he just—dared her, provoked her—turned to get her plate and pressed it in her lap.

"It's mah job, dahlin'. Now let us jus' get cozy an' enjoy the fact you're getting' a lil' TV time, why don't we?"

"The conference…" the words escaped her and Remy took an odd pleasure in seeing her nibble her lower lip in such a worried way. Another empty-handed update and re-run of Senator Kelly's exploration of the Lisoule Hotel's parking lot played on the little TV. Remy gave a playful and slightly sarcastic pat to her hands, curling her tiny fingers around the eating utensils and poking into the top pancake as he resumed his card game.

"So got anything to tell me, dahlin'? Ol' Remy might let ya out early on 'good behavior' if ya can spare me a couple of details, you know."

"Bite me." She stuffed a small bite of syrupy pancake into her sourly expressive mouth. He grinned and gave a small bouncy shrug with the short laugh. How tempting.

"No thank you dahlin'. We's still strangers, remember? Although, in a few days, I may take you up on da offer!" he wagged a finger at her as a satanic grin exploded on his pale face. Her golden eyes rolled up towards the ceiling as she kept her mouth cemented closed with food, keeping his persistence for information at bay for as long as possible. When she couldn't employ the tactic any longer, when he'd taken away her empty plate, the silence resumed again as his drilling eyes settled on her. He was going to stare the information right out of her, it seemed, but Lydia Keller was not about to bend.

"Keep staring," she demanded, folding her arms over her chest, one leg dangling off the bed and brushing the floor, "I might just do a trick."

"Hm," he laughed again, the second time she'd heard him do so. "You's a very nice looking lady, but Ah just don' understan' why your tongue is so foul. It goes bad wit' you, you know." his eyes dared to roll up her outfit and look her dead in the face. She wouldn't crumble, but she found his eyes very alluring. Lydia wasn't beneath this pompous man. "So what is your story, mah dear?"

"You're smart; you're watching the TV, let's see you connect the dots."

"Why does your daddy wanna cancel the mutant rally if you's missin'?" damn, Lydia thought, good question. I'm not going to answer it. She shrugged, lying to him, and Remy found it obvious, he laid down his deck of cards and made his way over to her. Lydia's heart went full-throttle in fear and instinctively she pressed herself to the headboard as the images came flashing back. Herald, Herald was standing in front of her. Grabbing her by the arms, rattling her like a ragdoll and she couldn't scream.

Remy quickly cupped his hands over her screaming mouth; heart beating frantically as his ears tuned to any external sounds. Why the hell was she screaming? He wasn't really going to do anything to her (although it was nice to know he looked that intimidating)! "Now you gon' have ta be quiet now," LeBeau found himself practically pinning the Country Smiler to the bed as she tried to fight her "fight or flight" instincts and get her adrenaline levels back to normal. This wasn't Herald.

She was safe. She was okay. He wasn't Herald. He may be working for that fat bastard, but, she had to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he wouldn't act like him. The dark room still brought her nightmares, being stuck in it for so long; her imagination had dominated her completely.

Bad things waited for her in the dark. He waited for her in the dark; the man with the cigar in his mouth. She remembered the feral growl echoing off the invisible walls of that dark room, and the warm crimson splash the other man, the one without a shape, had told her was his blood. They were trying to hurt her. But where was mama, and dad?

The terse minutes Remy spent straddling the twenty-year-old were spent in sweat-spawning silence. Lydia was calming down. "What in da world is wrong wit' you, lil' lady?"

"Are we in the room? I don't want to be in the room! Turn on a light…" Lydia was hiding behind the fabric one loose arm of his trench coat gave her, pasted across her face. Slowly, confusedly, Remy LeBeau turned on the tiny lamp next to the two of them. A large sigh left her and he was allowed to retract his arm, Lydia hiding her goldenrod eyes under a hand with its five mostly-insipid appendages sweeping across her face.

"I'm okay…I'm okay…" Remy clambered off the feminine form and gingerly sat on the other side of the bed. Just what was going on? This wasn't how his usual abductions went. That shady client! He's in big trouble, givin' me a basket-case! Remy LeBeau thought as he angrily crossed his arms, glaring at the phone as Lydia sat herself upright and clutched a pillow to her torso, eyes locked on the TV.

* * *

"Where's my money, Kelly?" Senator Kelly gripped the phone with stony white knuckles, he knew that voice. Herald Punter.

"I—I, it's here. I have it. I never forgot our deal. Where's my daughter?" He only thought of asking the latter question when his heart had slowed a bit. The adrenaline was so raw it made him feel sick. Herald Punter laughed from the other end. For four years he'd been waiting on sixteen grand, and now he was finally getting it. Sixteen grand and a _mysterious _clear from all criminal charges due to a lost file; what wonders a memory could do.

"She's fine, with a friend of mine."

"Not the _Zamochit_?" Kelly wanted to make sure, to pray it wasn't true. If Lydia was with the _Zamochit_, whoever he was, he may never see her again. Horror stories that made the blood run crystalline rivers of ice in his veins had been told about the _Zamochit_; at first he was just a myth in the police world. Then he became real. Every slaughtered mutant, it was him; every ex-policeman and associated criminal who'd broken away from their past endeavors that had been left with burning, gaping holes in their necks.

It was him. His trademark, the calling card. Beads of sweat ran a marathon down his back, using the secret passages in his black suit with the blue undershirt and red tie like a playground. Eliza nibbled on her white-gloved hands in tears and anticipation. Why was the phone call so long? Why weren't these fancy machines able to trace his call?

Suddenly, a signal locked and she clapped silently, at the risk of the phone call abruptly ending, as Kelly pressed—wracked his brain—for time to extend the call. A sigh of relief chilled him. "You're in big trouble, Punter." He warned, jabbing a finger at a currently intangible person. A laugh escaped the phone and Kelly cringed, he didn't like laughs. Laughs were bad, coming from this man, at least.

"We'll see who's in trouble, Kelly. The man who stole the Senator's daughter or the Senator who's been hiding a twenty-year-old skeleton in his closet…" the line went dead.

"Corner of Baltic Avenue and fifth!" the MRD soldier exclaimed as the machine and its whirring tapes, mechanisms, finally stopped. Eliza beamed and Kelly was already waving out squad cars as he, himself, ran to catch up and sit in the first one heading out. They followed to the location, being meticulous, and speedy. And ended up being disappointed and stopping four directions of traffic. The only thing at the corner of Baltic Avenue and fifth was a payphone.

* * *

"You promise not to take me to your client and I'll tell you a little about him." Lydia felt like she was making a deal with the devil, but for as hellish and coy as he looked, for as "big and bad" as he thought he was, she felt strangely safe. Anyone was safer than Punter.

"Ah believe Ah can make dat deal…" Remy lounged back with a broad grin of satisfaction as he inhaled the scent of his red-backed King of Hearts. It smelled like her place. He shivered in delight. It smelled like _her_.

"His name is Herald Punter. He works beneath someone."

"Who, dahlin'?"

"The man with the cigar…"

"He smokes cigars, too, you know." this was interesting. Remy had never witnessed anything like it. The hostage was cooperating. As much as he adored basking in the fact Lydia seemed to be putty in his hands he realized that she wasn't doing this because his presence commanded it, no, he could tell by the way she curled into herself, she had a reason. There was a purpose to her telling him these little dark secrets.

"No, there's another man, a Shadow Man, that smokes the cigars…I don't want to go to Punter because Punter goes to _him_."

"You seen 'im? The "Shadow Man"?" Remy inquired, trying not to laugh at her. His crimson eyes squeezed shut to help fight off the snickers as he simply entertained the fantasy of having what spawned the smell attached to his King of Hearts drench him. Hm, that wasn't healthy. Not even her first full day in captivity and he was already having fantasies.

"No, and I don't want to."

"Dat's okay. You're bein' nice now. See, Ah'm a much more agreeable person when you's cooperating." he pointed out. The Country Smiler rolled her eyes.

"I'm only doing it to warn you." Lydia glared at him for emphasis.

"Right," Remy teased. What other reason could there be? "Warn me of what?" He pressed.

"I'm not talking about it anymore." He saw her resilience and dropped the subject. "So what do you do?" the Country Smiler asked after an hour of silence had finally eaten at her, save for the rhythmic sound of cards on the table.

"Pardon?" LeBeau inquired, not missing a beat with his precious cards.

"Punter deals with mutants. What do you do?" did that mean she was one? Remy eyed the woman sitting on the bed curiously. She looked normal, aside from the fact his crotch was roused, but that wasn't too rare for him. He inspired fire in the card and snuffed it, not wanting to explode anything.

"You can say Ah'm rather explosive and curious by mah nature." Remy winked at her. Lydia scrunched her nose in disgust.

"So you're a pervert."

"With experience in fighting."

"That means an escape is pretty much a botched effort then…" Lydia whispered to herself. Remy winked at her from across the room, smiling as if to say 'bingo' to her train of thought. She pouted.

"An' Ah'm a mildly jealous man so I ain't gon' let you go easily, dahlin'."

"Game of war contradicts that." never once had Lydia remembered losing that particular card game. Remy found it a personal invite. It was a way for him to keep an eye on her, get close to her, get her defenses down, and secure his "diamond" while proving he wasn't a hundred percent hardcore abductor. He wouldn't lose. "You lose," the Country Smiler proffered, "you sleep in the bathtub," her head nodded to the room next to Remy warmly glowing and displaying the rich, expansive, polished area.

"An' I win, we share da bed."

"No dice. I'll sleep on the balcony before I let you touch me."

"Playin' hard ta get," Remy teased. Two hours passed until the game was done. Her horrified expression varied inversely to his smug one. "Ladies first, dahlin'." she simply snatched a pillow and the thick blanket from the bed, stripping it, save for one other pillow and the thin sheet.

"Don't mind if I do, enjoy pissing yourself." Lydia locked herself in the bathroom and Remy crossed his arms.

"Dat lil' woman's tougher than mah deck." He chortled. He felt around his pocket for his trademark gambit and began to avidly search his person for the fifty-two pieces of comfort. Surely he'd collected them and put them back in their proper place after the game?

_Shrrriiip, riiiip, rip, rip, rip, shrip, riiiiip_

LeBeau was instantly ramming the bathroom door. "Gimme mah cards back woman, now! You's in big trouble rustlin' up Remy LeBeau!"

"Sorry," _rip_, "I'm making confetti at the moment!" _rip, rip, rip, rip._

The phone rang and pulled Remy from his fiery threatening. He snatched up the hotel phone, listening to the voice he was already wishing dead. _"You hold her for three weeks. Let's make Senator Kelly sweat, huh?"_

"Three weeks?! Now you listen here Ah'm--"

"_You want your money?"_

"Yes sir." his jaw locked.

"_Her. You. Three weeks."_


	4. Chapter 4

The Last Great Steal

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Opening Notes: Thanks to the **353 **hits and **212 **visitors! :] actual reviews would be nice, but hey, these numbers are good too!

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**| Duces |**

Remy LeBeau, by nature of his profession, was an early riser. For the longest of his awake hours he glared and pouted over his undoubtedly shredded deck of cards lying in tatters behind the locked bathroom door. He drew up plans of revenge, some humiliating, some just humorous, as he figured they had three weeks together, he might as well make it fun for him. Well, it really—truly—wouldn't be fun unless he could get her to consent to certain activities, but more than likely that wouldn't happen. Two breakfasts were ordered and, again, he kicked his feet up on the shabby little table to watch the news with Lydia Keller still being the centerpiece of all media-related buzz.

Finally, just when his brain threatened to turn to mush at the hands of another card game that proved to be droll by repetition, he remembered little gadgets were stowed in his bag. His little toys, things he couldn't get by without, and some of those little toys could pick locks. Grinning, Remy pushed himself off of the table to float like a phantasm to his bag, rooting through it until the tools were poised between his fingers, and went to work triggering the tumblers in order to escape into the room. Cautiously, carefully, he opened the door on account of not knowing how she'd lay on this icy tile floor—god forbid he hit her in the head with the door, she'd wake up and all hell would break loose!—and peeked inside. Remy could be a fantastic lair, but he couldn't deceive a pull that almost resided as magnetic in nature; looking at her, head resting on one arm and the second arm—her left one—drawn in to her side while her body curved like a 'C' around the bottom of the toilet, as if to hug it.

Gingerly, he picked her up; priceless alabaster in his arms, and moved her to the warm bed, tucking the sheets around her. Grant it he was mad about the pieces of card that almost caused him to slip, but if he let such a little thing irritate him, who's to say keeping Lydia Keller beside him was the safest thing? Remy would try and let the incident go, lest it damage his chance at the promised amount of money he would be earning. It was at his thoughts of the money that made him stop, reflecting on what he'd heard last night before the victorious card game. What the hell had happened to her?

Was it really a smart thing to turn her over to Herald Punter? LeBeau found himself feeling mildly drained, either stemming from the depression of having to hole up the alleged basket case for three weeks, or from being given a deliberate run around in a dark room with no illuminating light. How was he supposed to do his job if he didn't know the truth? He'd quit the Thieves' Guild before ever handing over someone to a known serial killer, and how did he know that wasn't Herald Punter? Lydia Keller first moved at ten A.M. and Remy resumed the slightly aloof personality that would emit the occasional amorous remark to her.

_Three weeks…_he thought, _it's okay, twenty-one days, you can handle it! _Remy began to eat his chilling breakfast and watch the girl roll around in her sleep. It made him smile; she looked like a kid having a most amusing and wondrous dream and just acting in it. Senator Kelly had, once again, been displayed on the TV giving out a new speech as opposed from the one heard yesterday and Remmy squinted. He could practically see the bullets of sweat on his skin, and if the TV was permeable he was sure he could have smelled the nervousness that the man reeked of. She finally woke at twelve and Remy gave an obnoxious, growling sigh as he returned from cleaning up the practical paper maché his cards had made, and dared smiled at her.

Something had shifted in them since last night. Since she'd exposed such a personal truth Remy felt to wrench at him with such chilling honesty, he'd decided to lighten up on the "fear" aspect of this abduction. If he did end up turning her over the Punter he'd want to give her some good memories before whatever happened, happened. So why not start with giving her some fresh air? Remy shook the girl from her dozing; hand fitting warmly on the curve of her small shoulder and she looked up at him with a dreamy, sleepy look that he tried to shrug off as something with no effect. But her eyes were gorgeous, a sin.

"You need ta get dressed," said LeBeau as he checked the bathroom to make sure all the scraps were picked up, walking around the room to keep himself occupied and to keep his cheeks from flushing near her eyes. "We's goin' on a lil' outing…" her eyes danced wildly with an unknown light and Remy felt a cold stone sinking into the pit of his stomach with a grimace. _Something tells me I shouldn't have said that…_

"NOO! I'M NOT LETTING GO OF THIS DOOR AND YOU'RE NOT TAKIN' ME ANYWHERE!" Lydia kicked at the two hands pulling in vain on her ankle to separate her from the door. LeBeau had been attempting to pry the girl off for at least twenty minutes and was very sour with the fact he'd underestimated her strength. Remy finally abandoned the steely grasp on her ankle; letting his fingerprints turn purple on her barely colored skin and let her relax for a few seconds, her adrenaline sank, and he bolted back over to her rooted position at the bathroom door and took her by the waist.

"You start lettin' go of that door, now! I ain't takin' you nowhere you don't wanna go!"

"LIAR!" screamed Lydia, digging her nails into the ridges of the carved corner with the out-jutting doorway colored a creamy, soft banana-yellow, "YOU'RE TRYING TO TAKE ME OUTSIDE AND I DON'T WANT TO GO!"

"Just because I'm taking you outside," he hissed in her ear as his lips pressed softly against the impressionable bend of cartilage, "doesn't mean I'm takin' you to Punter…" there was a crack in her resilience. Shortly after when LeBeau removed his arms from the warm body he presented her with clothes he'd taken from her home. "Now can we get goin'?" Lydia mistook whatever look he gave her for softness, for genuine understanding, and slowly went to change for the outing.

Never had air tasted sweeter, nor the feel of a trench coat any more like heaven to her skin.

* * *

Senator Kelly had holed himself up in the Lisoule Hotel, pacing frantically as he dialed a number only he and Eliza knew. He was the snake, not Punter, lurking in the Garden of Eden where Lydia was no longer resting. The seven numbers beeped slowly, and the ringing, the smothering rings, went by even slower, as Punter took his sweet time picking up. Today the money would be exchanged; Kelly couldn't bear to have his daughter missing more than two days, the critical point for a missing person's case, or to have this supposed skeleton exposed. If he could rewind time he never would have taken her there, then Punter wouldn't have been ordered by the _Zamochit_, whoever he was, to keep an eye on her; Jesus if he could only take it back!

"No more obedience schools," he remembered whispering as the past out little shell of his daughter was finally returned to him. "No more." her rescuers, and Lydia herself, was part of the reason he went on to press the anti-mutant laws. Psychologically, however, if one could unearth his most sacred and unholy memories they would fine this "anti-mutant" suit he wore was not for the genetically odd, but for the twisted man that had shattered the perfect porcelain of his family. Kelly even remembered the day when Lydia turned eighteen and he took time off of work just to go get her last name changed to "Keller" instead of "Kelly" to protect her. What he would give to keep her safe, apparently no one wanted it, they just wanted to see him squirm; and he was.

"_So you have my money?" _Herald laughed like he and Kelly were old-time friends instead of negotiators. _"I want you to drop it off at a place called Wine River at five tonight."_

"O-o-okay." Kelly almost vomited. Lydia. Lydia. Lydia, it was like the pulse of life within him, his baby girl. "I will, I promise I will. It'll-it'll-it'll be there in a steel brief case with-with clasps. A big steel brief case!"

"_You're a good man, Kelly, no wonder why people love you…hahahaha…." _the laugh turned the marrow of his bones to icebergs and Kelly ran to the bathroom to vomit just as Eliza walked in.

"Honey," Eliza pasted herself uneasily across the bathroom door, peeking in at the man, "are you alright?"

"Yeah," eventually the man had regurgitated enough shame and liquids within him to allow a buoyant face to meet his wife's tired eyes and haggard appearance. "Just bad food." he assured, waving her away as he dragged weak and trembling limbs to lock them on the shimmering sink so that he could brush his teeth of the filth and lies. Eliza, highly doubtful, left her husband alone as she fixed her appearance—finally—in case anymore appeals for their child's safety were to be made. She, herself, felt sick as the hope got slimmer and slimmer of a safe return. Senator Kelly touched his knuckles to his teeth, gnawing lightly on them as he saw his wife break down at the polished vanity and cry with tears rivaling an open floodgate, for the first time since they'd gotten Lydia back from the Obedience School that had started this whole mess. It truly tugged on his heart, much like Lydia's childish happiness could do when she was around, and brought one of the strongest men of the present time to his knees before the arms of shame and sorrow.

"I have to tell someone." he whispered, not being heard over the outrageous sobs of Eliza Kelly. "I'd rather expose a twenty-year-old skeleton than hold a funeral for it." true, he'd never thought about it as being horrible, but never once—at any of the conferences Lydia had been in—had he addressed her as a daughter before yesterday. No one should know. That would make them raise questions on why her last name was different, questions would come up about her and they would all be put on the line. In danger, much like they were now.

He'd never admit it, a secret much older than Lydia herself and the one her presence had formed, but there was a much larger one tucked away in the Kelly closet. One that could fire him from his Senator position, that could rip the only force of help able to get his daughter back, and most assuredly they could remove him from his current residency. This was such an explosive secret that only Charles Xavier could know it. Him, and Wolverine; otherwise known as Logan. He dialed a different number, this time, Hank McCoy, a pacifist that was acting like glue between any chance of peace the senator and mutants could have, answered.

"Hank," said the man with a quivering tone of voice, "I want to talk to Lydia's Godfather."

"Of course," there was a shuffling sound. "Let me get Logan for you." the phone switched hands.

"What do you want?"

"Track her with Cerebro." Kelly begged. "Find Lydia before I lose her, please."

* * *

Herald Punter grinned and flicked the ash of his fat cigar down on the stone floor, the only light in the abandoned _Wine River _struggling between his fingertips. As Kelly promised, a hooded figure with a brisk pace was dropping a large steel brief case delicately to the cracked, damp pavement outside the front door. Only when he saw the red lights, the eyes scalding him, fade away, did he think to get up and retrieve his bounty. In his greedy hands the case was weightless, when, in actuality, it was weighed down with his promised sixteen grand. Despite the fact he was being paid for what was done years ago, Punter still found an insane and unexplainable glee in the yellow notepad holding notes on Lydia's "obedience school" record.

The child had been given to them when she was sixteen, and had been given back by the age of seventeen. That's all it had taken, to correct her "problem". For the longest time Lydia Kelly had successfully been harboring an unknown gene within her body, one that allowed a sense of someone's self to be lost and succumb to what she wanted. But she was too nice for that, she'd work for something she wanted, like an honest person, rather than blindly and successfully sway someone into giving it to her. She'd never said a word about the ability that had only been found by mistake, concerning a time when her mother wouldn't give her the car keys, and she'd tried her hardest to hide it from her anti-mutant father.

Senator Kelly felt that her ability could go unchecked, now discovered, and was "concerned" at how long it had been un-established, and thus sent her to a facility where it could be contained. He would never have committed her to that "school" which turned out to be a placed called _Alpine's _that was originally a hospital converted to a school-esk place to fool the people. What Senator Kelly didn't know, what he was never told, was that this place—_Alpine's_—was a place to take mutant children that families didn't want. Lydia was one of the lucky ones to survive, all thanks to Godfather Logan. If Charles hadn't have asked Storm to take him on a walk in the park that day he did, he never would have met Eliza to talk lightly about Kelly's persistence with raging against the mutants, and he never would have sensed the ability lying dormant within Lydia. Something Eliza never told him about until they got Lydia back that sweet day she turned seventeen.

Punter blinked his eyes and inhaled the cigar-sweet air around him. He was dwelling too much on the past. He'd been the "Headmaster" of Alpine's and, as a result, had killed many unwanted children, but when it came time, when the _Zamochit _had asked him to kill the Kelly daughter for the originally promised sixteen grand that he'd only received today, he couldn't do it. Lydia Keller looked too much like a niece he'd lost to a drunk driver on a hit-and-run case. So, he'd saved her, but when the crazy mutant with the feral voice of a wolf, and the razors in his hands, had found him with the girl in his arms, his forearm had been severely lacerated by metallic rage and misconception. It was only after the Kelly family had backed out of the deal, that the _Zamochit _decided to put Senator Kelly on a list, a special and exclusive list.

It was one that promised revenge. He inhaled the crisp and musty scent of cash in its neat little stacks, thumbing the white bindings holding the hundreds together as he smiled. Good riddance to the brat, Gambit could keep her. In fact…Herald Punter reached for his cell phone, dialing the room number he'd given the thief. It rang, and rang, and rang. No one picked up.

His eyes narrowed. Just what the hell was going on? Where was LeBeau, where was the girl? He began to leave the thief in question a message, had he not been yelling, perhaps he could have heard his own demise. The shadow crept closer as the spittle flew across the phone and danced in the short burning end of the cigar while he smashed it angrily into the ash tray, snuffing it.

"LeBeau you better answer me," bellowed Herald Punter, "I pay you, you slimy bastard. Kill the girl. Finish her. Throw her in the damn river. I got your cut and I-"the perpetual phone call was at a loss of words; any further speech overthrown by the ear-splitting sound of a gunshot. The _Zamochit _didn't separate from his shadow, merely stepped back and acted like the ringing in his ear was the clinking of chardonnay in a glass. A celebration he would share with others of his caliber. He weaved his way around, using the shadows as walkways, as if someone could see through the building, through the shadows, and see him plain as day; he plucked the bullet from the .45 out of the man's skull with a pair of tweezers that actually belonged to his female coworker. If anything, she would get put away before he would, and he'd make sure of that.

The _Zamochit _picked the case up, putting all of the cash back in the brief case with rubber gloves and slid the rubber-encased handle of the .45 back into his pocket before leaving the _Wine River. _It was the first and last time anyone cared about Herald Punter that didn't have brightly burning rage for him. Oddly enough, perhaps at the angle _Zamochit _eyed the corpse, he couldn't see the phone; but the minutes wound up running and only the shivering footsteps ceding into nothingness were recorded. It was here the _Zamochit _made his mistake, one that was identifiable. "Goodbye, Punter," he said, slamming the door.

* * *

Emma Frost was currently and avidly searching for a girl called Lydia Keller as Wolverine bristled uncertainly behind her. Damn Charles, damn that loveable old man, but the promise still stood today. He and Lydia had never met (to her recollection, Charles had severely suppressed her memories of the obedience school) but he'd taken the position of 'Godfather' from Charles, should anything happen to him; and with the whole contact from twenty years in the future thing happening, he was most certainly the Godfather at this point and time. It was quite alright though, because Wolverine found it good in two ways: the Kelly family would get their daughter back, and Logan would have something to hold over Kelly's head, should the MRD get out of hand concerning the X-Men. "Oh you'll love this," the blond murmured, a sour smile on her silvery-blue lips.

"What?" Wolverine snapped, slamming his hands down on the counter before Cerebro.

"She's in the company of Remy LeBeau." in an instant, Logan was gone. "WAIT!" she called out, lucky that the feral man even gave her a glance over his broad shoulder, even though it was more of a glare.

"What is it, spit it out!" he snapped again. Emma leaned uncomfortably against the doorway to the room.

"She's not hurt…she's actually okay and-"

"That doesn't matter," Logan shook his head at her. Newbie, didn't matter what age she was, Emma didn't get it. "She's missing and now we know where she is. We're getting her home."

"They're being followed…" the words made his neck hairs stand on end and this time the blond didn't stop him as he ran off. Instead, she rounded up the other members of the X-Men, to follow him into the city. If not, two mutants may end up dead.


	5. Chapter 5

The Last Great Steal

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Opening Notes: Thanks to the **510 hits** and **297 visitors** to this story. It's got about four chapters left, which includes the epilogue :] Big thanks to June Birdie and iiEpic F A I L for being supporters of Remy and Lydia :]

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**| Queen of Hearts |**

"Thanks for doing this, I mean…it's good to feel sunshine again." the Country Smiler lived up to her sweet and relaxed, almost a dreamy and drugged grin, as the cheap sunglasses her not-so-fierce abductor purchased for her were placed over her eyes, and the collar of his large trench coat tugged towards the center of her collarbone. Remy couldn't risk anyone seeing her, and did quite enjoy the brief brush of contact, the pale-gold, perhaps a healthy sallow colored skin beneath his fingers was enough to make him want to kiss her. The scene could easily be constructed so; they could play lovers touring the town, they were already holding hands, and her small ones felt nice trapped in the larger spread of his own bony fingers. Of course, he told her, it was only so she didn't run, but really she didn't want to; Lydia was just fine window shopping and keeping her own low profile. LeBeau himself, had dressed casually—feeling at a loss and out of place with his trench coat—to avoid anyone recognizing him and bringing the heat.

He simply watched her out of the corner of his ruby eyes, seeing the basically basket-case-wallflower unfold when graced by the sun. _Maybe she has seasonal withdraws_, he considered, reminding himself that little to no sunshine had been given to her since the abduction. She smiled bigger, brighter, and longer, as they continued to hold hands and roam down any street, picking random points to turn and laughing at the spontaneous-ness of it all. How could she be so different? Lydia wasn't spitting insults at him, tearing up his possessions, or warding off the physical contact that roped them together in the usual flow of bodies careening around the corners…had she lost it?

Remy laughed lightly at the idea. No, she liked it; it had all been a long-denied secret trying to hide beneath the surface of her. She liked him, and had finally lost against his imminent charm. "Come dahlin', I'm hungry and you haven't had breakfast yet so we're stoppin' for a bite to eat." he tickled her side with the mad weave of his fingers on her white shirt hiding beneath his trench coat and Lydia giggled. Did she have multiple personalities?

Finally the mystery ate at him and, as they sat down to the oblivious _flap _of menus before them, he finally asked her. "What makes you so different today, Smiler?" She took her nickname without missing a beat, smiling beneath the hat he'd bought three right turns ago at a tourist stop, one of the many things trying to distract everyone who lived here from the mutant fiasco tormenting the city. Remy grimaced at the signs he could see promoting Kelly as the new head of this or that, the new senator, or renewing him, and anti-mutant signs. Only one or two of Magneto's 'Escape to Genosha' signs lingered among the bigotry. He felt a little riled, seeing the signs, and being nervous in general—something didn't sit right about today—but nonetheless ordered an omelet and sweet tea, listening to her almost-lilt inquire of toast, perhaps a small sandwich, and a second sweet tea.

Maybe they weren't so foreign. "Where'd you come from?" Lydia felt braver since she was out of the usual atmosphere concerning the boisterous Remy LeBeau; he was more cooperative and laid-back today. "You know, you have an accent and all."

"I come from the Bayou, dahlin'. S'where I get mah love of sweet tea from." He felt compelled to wink at her and she smiled; drawing sunlight across the dimples in her cheeks. She truly was beautiful, tough as nails, and definitely not your average airhead, one to not be influenced into obedience—excluding the whole problem with turning on a light—and certainly his most amusing case. Lydia was like something he couldn't contaminate, a prize he couldn't have, dangling in his face. He would make it his. They shared a very silent breakfast, save for the clinking of glasses among the table or the succulent sound of lips pulling apart and pressing together—something they both watched, as if to cue the conversations that didn't happen—until it all faded away with a bill and an exodus; erasing their mark upon the small diner.

After taking two lefts and a trolley to the upper-most northern part of town Remy LeBeau made a stop at the Le Del Hara Hotel, to check them in. Should the unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach get any worse during the day, they would crash here. It was during the checking-in-and-paying process that he realized maybe he wasn't really thinking about the money anymore. After all, if the absolutely broken-hearted, confused whisper of "You're making me go back in already?" from the Country Smiler made him want to run right back outside with her, what was he thinking about? Her…Remy couldn't lie about it anymore, he was thinking about her.

It made sense. Always, the cold chill exploded and stemmed inside of him like a plant poking through soil with tough, sturdy roots, he'd been thinking about her. Lydia had been woven into his train of thought by some obscene or natural manner. The interest aroused by her picture, her smile, numerous failed attempts to bed or sway her, his waning charm impression shot into the ground, and the way her body burned iridescent memories into him, were the first few apparent proofs. Mechanically and emerging dizzily from the astonishing discovery coddled away in his own mind, LeBeau stuffed the house key in her right breast pocket, not even bothering to try and feel her up, and threw his shock-numbed body to the outside work.

A kiss of golden sunshine to warm him. She had to taste like this. After all, Lydia did smell like vanilla and peace. "Are ya alright? You're, like, sleep walking or something. Earth to…wait a minute, what was your name? You told me once…Ronnie, Ron? No..Rem…Remington? No, Remy! That's it, earth to Remy!"

"Hm?" Lydia gave him a flat look with her hidden eyes. He gave his superior smirk in response and gave the master cog in his brain a few muscled spins to keep him functioning. "I'm sorry," he realized with false-knit brows as he rounded on her; his smirk in place like a fine piece of art. "But I do believe you've ruined mah name several times. Did I not leave a good impression on you?" Lydia's face flushed; remembering the sick feeling of elation when his fingers danced across her skin what seemed like forever ago in her apartment, as she was pulled to the significantly taller male. "Perhaps I should leave you something to remember me by?" right there, right then, she could have sworn Remy LeBeau (amazing what lack of distance can do for your memory) was going to kiss her.

Only pressing his lips close enough to hers to tease, to whisper in massaging motions, Remy held her in his arms; refusing to crack and give into the beast of lust clawing into his chest caverns. Sirens, alarms, everything from red lights to bells went off in his head demanding to kiss her. Steal the kiss. Take it, taste her lips. He complied; the surprised and breathless moan escaping into the barely parted space of his lips and he grinned.

A fine prize. In the glee of the moment, however, the uproar of screams and the stampede of feet shattered their oblivious atmosphere. Remy immediately broke the kiss and jerked his head skyward. Bobby Drake, otherwise known as Iceman by the X-Men teammates, descended on a glistening pathway of frozen water while Shadowcat phased through innocent bystanders; Logan and the others not far behind. He was being tracked, more than likely fixing to fight for his life; LeBeau hooked one arm around the Keller girl and grasped a handful of random cards from her inside left pocket to light them and toss them towards any on the team.

Then he took off, holding her close like the precious cargo she was, driven insane by the adrenaline and lingering taste of her. "We just want to talk, bub." Logan's seething growl emitted from the left of him, the razor-sharp claws gleaming in the sunlight as he hopped onto another dormant car to keep in step with the fleeing thief. Remy wouldn't buy it; they were either going to kill him, or take her away. If he allowed them to follow him to the hotel, then their spot would be revealed and that would be just as bad. "You don't understand!" persisted Logan, growling and trying to swipe Remy's clothing and snag him, to try and make himself heard, "you're being followed by someone who can kill you!"

"I know and I'm lookin' at him!" said the other mutant in reply, throwing in a 'duh' face to the yellow and dark blue-clad one. Wolverine shook his head.

"No, someone who's not me, idiot! I came here to warn you!"

"He really did," added Bobby, directing his ice pathway over Remy's head.

"Shut up, I can talk to him myself!" hissed Logan, glowering up at the younger mutant. Suddenly MRD trucks swerved before the lot and cut off the chase. Senator Kelly and countless MRD men geared for what seemed to be the fight of their lives hoisted guns to their shoulders; others holding smoking bombs and similar deterrents.

"Don't fire!" declared the senator, running out to embrace Lydia. "Lydia…" he smoothed down her hair after the hat was thrown from her head, tears streaming liquid silver lines down his face.

"Daddy…" perhaps the only time, since all those years ago, did she remember uttering that word. They embraced and—thanks to the MRD trucks—the media trucks couldn't catch a single second of it. Remy was still keyed up; trying to take the girl away from her father and this action resulted in getting a light trim from a fellow mutant. Not enough hair for him to miss, but nonetheless, he quit for the moment. Their adventure couldn't end so soon, he still had many things to share with her!

Many more kisses to steal from her. "You," Senator Kelly narrowed his eyes at Remy LeBeau, poking his finger into the six foot one-inch tall man in an emphasis on rage, "have explaining to do, should you want a lighter jail sentence. Start talking."

"I was jus' doin' mah job." said LeBeau with a shrug. That tore Lydia's heart to shreds. So she didn't mean anything? She was just a check? He refused to look at her in the eyes as he continued, "didn't get mah pay, though," a tiny smile broke on the thief's lips but he did say, "if you're gonna arrest someone, arrest the man that hired me 'cuz I didn't do a thing." again he was given the dirty look but he refused to crumble under it.

"It's true," Lydia whispered with a nod, "he really hasn't done anything to me. I promise…"

"If anything I've been keepin' her safe!"

"Safe from what you--?!"

_BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG-BANG!_

The MRD responders on the street ducked behind their cushioned uniforms as bullet holes became clear, peppering the side of the open vehicles and causing mutants and humans alike to duck. "See, there's worse things than me!" pointed out Remy as he squeezed Lydia's hand, able to wrench her away from her father. The thief thought the world of running, leaving them all behind and stashing her in a safe room; and he did, the gunman was probably trying to reload and aim for him, anyways, so why leave him ample opportunity to strike him? He took off down the alleyway before them, making a hard right and swinging her onto his back as he used his own skill at being flexible to launch himself atop the lowest row of a fire escape; quickly clambering to the roof of the building; he could hear the rattle of ice behind him, they were coming to get him. They wouldn't dare hurt her, though, so Remy considered himself to be partially safe; when the gunman, whom no one could see through the scattering crowd half watching the fading awe of a father-daughter reunion and MRD's trying to round up some sort of mutant creature, began to fire at the roof he ducked low, feeling the bullets cut the air around him, and took the back ways to the Le Del Hara Hotel.

* * *

Ever since they'd been seen buying sunglasses off of their second stop, he'd followed them. Dressed in his casual clothes and not his usual working attire (that would have made him discoverable far too quick) he continued to stalk them; gray hood up and prowling as his fingers caressed the side of the .45 laying placidly in his large pocket. They made him sick, the _Zamochit _glared at the two would-be lovers. He'd never gotten his opportunity to kill her, for being the freak that she was, but he found this quite alright because now he may be able to kill two of them, he'd get reimbursed a whole single number in the body count! At first, he thought of just open firing but found that unwise, as he only had—for right now—the six bullets at his disposal hidden within the confines of the gun's chambers, instead he continued to stalk them, one hat, one breakfast, and one kiss later, he was unconsciously pulling the gun from his jacket.

A spurt of fear went through him, as the face of his boss came onto the scene, avidly hugging and cherishing the girl that had gotten away from him. No, it was wrong, half of him wanted to say that, and knew it, half of him just wanted to kill the little freak and snub out her little boyfriend, too. The MRD had been looking for her boyfriend, anyways; they wouldn't have a profile on her. Kelly had never told anyone what she could do; when the other mutants showed up, a team of them—trying to make sure she stayed in her father's arms—that's when he took the initiative to soon fire. He did watch, though, gun almost out in the open, at the freely moving lips, noting their distracted conversation and mounting, aggressive body language displayed by the three males (Senator Kelly, Wolverine, and Remy) and then decided to fire.

Six rounds, shooting through the air, only muffled by people screaming. Only a quarter of the on-lookers actually ran away screaming for their lives, like geniuses, like him. The others stayed to watch the MRD's fight the X-Men, or to see a corpse graze the ground. He quickly retreated through the camouflage of bodies running away from the scene, the gun tucked safely in his large pocket and void of any bullets, and he listened to a commotion occur on the roof he was passing by. The Keller girl and her boyfriend had jumped precariously from the roof and disappeared out of sight; running in the wild herd of panicked people, he turned left like half of them, and saw a girl with a large trench coat, sunglasses, and wild brunette hair escape into Le Del Hara Hotel. A grin escaped him as he fled to a nearby coffee shop to look inconspicuous, putting his hood down, now he knew where to go next…

_Tomorrow morning, _thought the man, rubbing the side of a cleaned fake-porcelain mug and idly watching steam rise from his usual cup of java, _six bullets, with your name on it Keller. Try to get me fired, I'll show you what happens! Daddy's little girl will have zero say-so after today. _You see, he'd been fired on false pretenses (in his mind) Kelly had told him to go on with any anti-mutant projects he had in his arsenal to help him secure the spot for that bill of his; then everyone would love and dote on _Senator Kelly_ for stamping out all the mutants, not credit him and his underhanded but effective means. Then his daughter hears of it, and he only remembered through the Alpine experience that she, too, was a mutant, and of course, she threw a fit over these anti-mutant ideas. "It's just like trying to kill me, or hunt me down, or give me a serum, or make me register!" said Lydia Kelly back before her name was changed; exhibiting the stubbornness of her mother and continuing to badger her father about the subject as she stomped around his laboratory and easily weaved through temporarily shut down projects. Obviously, that hit the senator in a sensitive area, so, he did shut down the laboratory works, permanently, and even fired him due to his higher place of being chief of all the projects (assigned by Kelly, by the way) to appease her and hear nothing more of it.

Of course; there were three things Senator Kelly refused to do: give up the MRD for Lydia and her pro-mutant-ism, forget the Alpine's incident, and most importantly, take possession of his certification to allow him back into that scientific heaven of deadly manufacturing. True, he could do something more grand, complex, and all-out better than hunting her down and shooting her, but then he'd automatically be suspected, caught, and tried. At least with the old fashion way he still had a little more free time. Each day, for the next two weeks, he would rig one invention per day and send it out in the city for her, distractions while Senator Kelly lay recovering in bed to put the town in utter chaos, to give Remy LeBeau his last three weeks of life some peace with the one he dubbed "The Last Great Steal", his last and greatest chance at ruining the Senator for what he'd done to him…


	6. Chapter 6

The Last Great Steal

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Opening notes: Four days into the new month and this story is still the most popular. Thank you! Current status: Excluding epilogue and including this chapter: 2 chapters left. **123 hits **and **57** **visitors. **

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**| Dealing the Aces |**

"You should get some sleep, no?" Remy cast his eyes to Lydia who, since escaping back into their hotel room, hadn't even bothered to ask for food or complain about how he acted when going against her father. That was unusual; she'd jump at his throat for being so close to her father and being taken away again. Anyone would nag a man for showing his ass to her beloved father. Something was clearly disturbing her. "I'll watch out for the crazy guy, after all, I'm a thief, I think I can beat a gun…" he tried to soothe her, coming short of doing so as she simply glared at him, constantly wiping the corners and bottom of her eyes to erase what tears may indicate she was truly upset by the matter; Lydia Keller refused to go to sleep despite the fact her eyes burned and she kept nodding off against her own legs.

"I don't think you're fast enough to beat a gun." She spat acerbically at him. Lydia didn't want to see him get hurt, even if she never openly admitted to it. Remy hadn't done anything to her to make her hate him; in actuality he was kind of…nice. In a homely, cocky, thieving, annoying, pompous, determined kind of way. "You'll be dead before you can throw one of your fancy lil' cards at him…" Lydia frowned at him, finally letting one of her crystalline tears seep free from her tear duct and stumble blindly down her face.

Even having his usual motives, the general reaction to pity naturally being one of intolerance, Remy LeBeau couldn't bring himself to ignore that. It was close to impossible. Despite being hired as her abductor, her jailer, tormentor, he'd actually grown attached to the Country Smiler and feared that a down spiral would occur since seeing the picture, he'd only wished it would have happened slower than what it did. True the sight of someone almost shooting her had frozen him internally, but the fact that this shooter, deliberately or not, missed all of his shots, gave him some solace; now he knew that this was no longer about him getting paid, or Lydia herself getting delivered. Someone was trying to take them both out so they couldn't expose what they knew, and that only led Remy to believe someone—Punter or otherwise—had something to hide that they most certainly had their hands on.

The TV, as usual, was playing in the background and casting the neon pastels across the wall while Remy gently sidled in next to her. Since four days ago, she'd finally been letting him share the single bed and quit locking herself in various rooms provided in the lavish stay. Given his tendencies, and ones he was slowly discovering about Lydia, he was lying placidly, almost drowsy, on his back watching the colors mesh together with his lowering eyelids; her shoulder would barely press against his right one and he'd jump awake. Lydia was a contact sleeper, he learned, due to whatever had caused her hysterics that one time, she now craved contact and refused to be without it. Her barely golden hand just fluttered across his chest, fingers resting on his collarbone while her own eyelids flickered with sleep; she was pretty much sitting in the lulling arms of sleep at the moment, and Remy was right behind her.

There was an update, a red-eye morning announcement from Senator Kelly and the majestic theme music indicating an update roused Remy from sleep; he sat up lightly, carefully, stretching his spine against the bedpost to keep himself awake and alert. "As you know, ladies and gentleman," he began, telling a story to the cameras and possibly, surprisingly enough doing a report that didn't require a teleprompter, "my daughter, my wife, and I were openly attacked today. I was afraid, that I will admit, and I have new developments upon seeing my daughter. The man I had assumed to have done this kidnapping in the first place, Herald Punter, was found impossible of doing so due to his deceased status." that stunned Remy. Punter was dead? When did this happen?! "And I will say to my daughter's abductor, thank you for keeping her. At least with you, I know she's safe." _how sweet_, thought Remy, _her dad does like me…for now, anyways._

"The bullets fired were picked up from the ground and are now being analyzed by my personal crime lab to match to a gun where we will then attain a list of all who have recently purchased a matching gun or ammunition. Killer, I will find you, and you will suffer. I promise. To Lydia, my daughter, sweetheart, stay where you are. I know you're safe, just make sure you come home alright, even if it's with…your friend." he waved despite his haggard appearance, and the cameras rapidly stalked him back to the Lisoule Hotel. Remy was all beside himself for being mentioned twice during the speech.

"Friend," he chortled sleepily, "I may not stay her friend, you know." he jabbed a finger at the TV. "Before you know it I might become your son-in-law if we ain't careful!" he laughed louder at the thought. That would piss him off for sure! He wouldn't mind it, though. The Country Smiler was well worth the father, he could ignore her dad!

After the news had gone off he shut the TV off and snuggled back into the bed sheets. Remy, unlike Lydia, was a hard sleeper and it wasn't unusual to go to sleep under the pressure or possibility of being killed, of not waking up the next morning. She was having bouts of frightened awakenings but his light snore always muted whatever screamed tried to crawl out of her throat and sent her back to sleep. Unknown to Remy, because of his sleeping style, she would wrap her smaller hands around his, clutch them as if she would never wake up beside him again, and safely continue sleep. At five A.M, enduring another night terror, she bolted up straight out of the sheets, looking around wildly; that noise, the distant bang, definitely wasn't from her dream.

* * *

His hands shook erratically from the amount of raw sugar in his system. Since yesterday when he'd been so close to killing her, he hadn't given up on seeing his dream fulfilled. Lydia Keller would have the red filling of her veins spill out before his eyes, no matter how he attained it! With his third energy drink discarded, usually sneered upon by him (but in this case, necessary), he shut off the TV quite belligerently and forced his aching body to sleep. Two hours were given to him, and at five A.M, when his body refused to lay dormant any longer, he began to slowly fill the chambers of his .45, humming a wordless tune only he knew, and then tucked the weapon safely in the same jacket he wore at the failed shooting from yesterday.

Drawing from his memory that they'd escaped across the rooftop, then rapidly descended down to the ground before hiding into the Le Del Hara Hotel he found it calming to retrace his steps from the very point of the shooting, to the path he'd run with the fearful crowd. It brought him more solace, his usual comfort in repeating things a habit, and gave him the time he needed to continue working up enough nerve—ignorance—to continue with the hopeful assassination of Lydia Keller tonight. True, he hadn't been successful yesterday, but perhaps this early in the morning, when people were still sleeping, he'd be able to get away with it. Surprisingly enough, there were people at the front desk assuming he was a room renter and smiled kindly at him, welcoming into the hotel itself. Immediately, without the hesitation he'd displayed yesterday, the gun was presented—not fired—and thrust forward quite angrily.

"Lydia Keller. I know she has a room here, what's the room number?!" their mouths only stammered, to confused and afraid at the presence of the gun. What had they done? They were only working the midnight-early morning shift! "Where?!" he shouted again, his shaking hand thrusting the gun closer even though his feet were rooted to the ground in tension, anticipation, fury, and fear. The two front desk attendants held their hands shakily above their heads and he growled, shaking his head furiously, why was this so hard?

"Give me the room number, now!"

"Three seventeen." the one on the left finally muttered. The attendant speaking up was trying to distract him from looking at the one on the right, the one reaching under the desk to press a special button that alerted the local police force of an unsuspected situation. In an instant, they were both shot; a .45 bullet lodged neatly and precisely between their eyes. He quickly sped to the elevator, in a panicked frenzy repeatedly jamming the 'up' arrow button and holding the shaky pistol towards the stairs where anyone—if curious—would surely come down in order to check on what may or may not have been heard. One heavenly, automated chime of the doors opening was reveled as he slipped into the elevator and punched the opalescent button with the bold black three hiding in it; his hands shook fiercely. She would finally die, and Senator Kelly would pay the ultimate price for firing—using—him.

The elevator let him out and he took to stalking the hallways. There were at least four, right when the doors first opened, and now he had to waste precious time figuring out which hallway led where, how the numbers went along which sides, and how he could escape, if needed. Ten minutes later, he'd figured that only the two hallways to the left of the elevator took him to the rooms that began with three, the ones on his right took him to the lower levels or the higher levels, even miscellaneous things like the ice machine, vending machine, and game room. His fingers curled around the brass door handle to three seventeen and he jiggled it, thinking by some measure it would be easier to get into, like his fantasy. He continued to jiggle the lock with one hand, his gun-holding one temporarily free as he stowed the weapon back in the jacket and rummaged around his jean pockets for something to pick the lock with.

Everything from his keys on his key ring to his own personal credit cards was used, and nothing was triggering the rotation of the tumblers. Something had to be blocking the tumblers, themselves, but what? He cursed LeBeau, honestly, when Punter said he'd be hiring a most reputable thief he didn't buy it. Especially a mutant thief. Now he was just sorry he'd underestimated the freak and, had he known about him, while he was employed under Kelly, he would have gotten a better look at his profile.

Suddenly, the door opened and he poised the gun to fire at whoever was on the other side. Consequently, before he had the time to fire, something was jammed in the clip of the gun itself and firing was deemed impossible until the blockage was removed. The gun grew hot in his hands, and it tumbled from his sizzling fingers, he quickly stuffed the burning flesh inside his cool jacket, stumbling back from the gun as it literally exploded. A halved picture of a black Ace of Spades fluttered to his feet and Remy LeBeau himself shot him a bird free with a complimentary smile and securely locked the door behind him again. They were safe, much to his displeasure, but that's okay, he put his hood down and looked at the mangled remains of his gun while surrounding neighbors came out to check on him.

What to do in this situation? What to say? At the sight of the gun surely, hopefully none of the people would suspect or even connect the earlier shootings to him, would they? No, they saw him as someone under Senator Kelly; they couldn't possibly think it was him! "I...I was," he stammered to one of the concerned faces in front of him, "I found Lydia Keller, and her kidnapper, and he almost killed me!" they believed him, and instantly someone had a cell phone out to contact the MRD.

_Escape me now, _he smiled, taking on the image of a frightened but 'thankful to be alive' victim of assault.

* * *

LeBeau had to admit, when Lydia first woke him up by avidly shaking him by the collar of his shirt he was disgruntled and defiant, content enough to roll away from her and embrace a large, fluffy section of the covers to snuggle back to sleep with. "Remy get up!" She smacked him with a pillow. "I heard gunshots!"

"No you didn't," he rolled over to hug her, inviting her to reconsider the cold kiss of the pillows and go back to sleep. "You're dreaming."

"I'm awake." Lydia pointed out with a growl. He sighed through his nose, not wanting to peel open his crimson eyes. Remy was the type when having to open up his eyes away from sleep, he couldn't get _back_ to sleep.

"Then you're hallucinating." He proposed in his aggravated baritone. Remy looped an arm around her waist, exhaling a sleepy-sweet sigh against her ear. "Just go on to sleep, Remy ain't gonna let nothing get you. They're gonna have to pry my fingers off you if they want you. Nobody takes anything from Remy." the words were touching, even if they were murmured through a mouth half full of pillow. Lydia still couldn't take the feeling of unrest growing within her. Only when the lock began to rattle quite noisily did Remy finally peel his eyes open and glower fiery-like at the door.

Someone was trying to break in, and more than likely trying to shoot them. Undoubtedly it would be the same disguised man that tried to kill them earlier. He staggered to the door and jammed the Two of Hearts card in the lock; if the amateur or amateurs on the other side of the door were smart, they'd try to pick the lock but would now find it impossible because the tumblers were locked. Slowly waking up, he secretly disguised the fact that, he, too, was now getting worried at the persistence of the person outside their room. "I'm going to blow them to pieces!" Remy hissed, agitated that this person foolishly disturbed his sleep and cracked his knuckles before thumbing through his desk and producing an Ace of Spades before ripping the Two of Hearts from the lock and pushing the door ajar.

"Remy don't! You could get hurt!" the way his name softly rolled from her lips made him shiver. It must've been the first time she'd ever said it in a way like that. How…touching. "What if he shoots you?" her tender words laced the air and he sighed, looking back at her.

"I'll be fine, you jus' let Remy handle it. Go back to sleep."

At first he was stunned, this was a rather short man (in comparison to him, anyways) and the gun that would've been pointed at his lower abdomen drew back, angling up as the man looked up at him. He seemed mildly shocked that someone had answered the door. Seeing the man's finger barely squeeze the trigger Remy lit the card and jammed it in the clip, flipping the interloper a bird and slamming the door shut as the person outside struggled with the gun. Upon hearing the satisfying 'boom!' of the gun exploding he grinned wolfishly at the girl clutching the hem of her knee-length night gown in fear, loving the slender, scissor-like legs peeking out from the covers. Everything was okay, like he said.

Lydia flipped the TV on for some early morning relief to block out the horror that could have killed them and found the increasing yammer at their door growing harder to exterminate. Finally she couldn't take it anymore and threw the remote at the wall, just to see if the inner noise would make the outer noise stop. With no success she sighed, hung her head, and looked at Remy. Suddenly the 'Breaking News Alert' theme song with tiny trumpets played and a profile of the Le Del Hara Hotel was shown, the bold white, stretched headline declaring "KELLY DAUGHTER FOUND" sending ice through both of them. Her eyes narrowed at him and Remy murmured a flat out 'oh shit' as he rubbed his face.

She really didn't want to show him that she was a mutant too. Her parents had always made her promise not to show anyone since the accidental time of releasing her ability onto her mother; Lydia had been so scared when she saw what had happened. Especially after Alpine's, she never thought she'd be able to display the ability again, but after the post-traumatic stress of the event gradually faded, her ability came back. "Pack up whatever you have," Lydia looked at him with a set face, "I'm getting us out of here." Remy would have laughed at her, genuinely, openly, had he not realized that she was being serious about this. Something of this nature was void of even the tiniest trace of the country smile that had captivated him.

"But you're hu—"

"Remember when I told you Punter deals in mutants, and then I asked you what you could do?"

"Yeah…oh don't tell me you're—"

"Yes, imagine that. Senator Kelly's precious little girl is a mutant. Why do you think my last name is 'Keller' instead of 'Kelly'? We had my name changed so no one could hold this against my dad. Or find me easier…" Remy looked absolutely stunned. No wonder why he thought she was so cute! Inter-mutant attraction! Quickly, though, remembering what Lydia said, he collected what things he'd started with on this oddball job and gave her a nod to show he was ready. "Alright, take my hand. I figured out when I hold someone's hand it doesn't affect them." cautiously, and waiting to see just what her ability was, he watched Lydia swing open the door and suddenly all of the people before them dropped to the floor like dead flies, cringing and howling in pain; he, himself, could hear the high-pitched, screech like tones coming from thin air and affecting the people, but was in no way moved by them.

"Let's go!" stumbling only lightly behind her, LeBeau and the missing Keller girl took off beneath the early morning sky.

* * *

Herman Briggs with the local police and detective force was drinking his fifth cup of coffee watered down with milk and creamer when the detectives from the earlier shooting scene were tossed on his desk in an air-tight sealed baggy. Six total bullets. "From the Kelly scene, sir," Herman turned his peppered grey and white head to the younger man. He remembered that, it was the few brief seconds of reunion before an unseen psycho fired off rounds in the air, they'd yet to catch that man, or woman, but they would!

"I want you to run them by DNA analysis and let me know as soon as any results come in." Herman, himself, had been controlling the countless tips that had been coming in on the hotline. One peculiar thing was a series of three phone calls trying to come in at the same time from the Le Del Hara Hotel about quiet little pops they'd heard, and were awakened by, but pushed it off as a dream. Fellow police cops James Fernando and Holly Cycles were taking witness statements from them now, trying to see if any of the details matched. Caught at a point where they _knew _Lydia Keller was still alive, miraculously, way past the forty-eight hour mark, and having to deal with other cases at the same time, Briggs and ever other man on the force were pressed for time and badgered to get the present cases wrapped up. Just when he turned away to indulge on the last sip of his coffee officer Cycles came in holding official papers—the witness statements—out for him to see.

"All of the witnesses are reporting to hear or at least integrate gunshots in the early morning." she confirmed. The radio sitting at the corner of his desk crackled, someone was trying to call in. Norma Fields, a man actually investigating the Le Del Hara Hotel scene continued to page the senior cop in charge.

"Chief," came Fields, "we've got two dead. Shot in the same style…"

"Could be our Kelly shooter…" pointed out Cycles and Briggs nodded, it probably was. It made sense. Once the bullet analysis came through, and whatever DNA evidence could be obtained, they would be able to piece something more together. "The Le Del Hara Hotel is only about ten or fifteen minutes from the original shooting area." she knew the area by heart, which is why Briggs attached her to the case.

"I've got the shells; too, they look like the same ones Freddy tossed on your desk."

Herman pretty much tuned out Fields on account of one of the DNA analysis members walking in his door. Sharon Hughes swiveled her clipboard filled with black and white comparison pictures and Herman blinked tiredly at it. She exhaled exasperatedly; not realizing that the senior cop's brain shut off at six A.M, honestly weren't they supposed to have the same endurance measures? "We got matches on the bullets. They belong in a .45."

"I see. Cycles, get me a list of anyone who's recently purchased ammunition for a gun like that or the gun itself maybe within the last month."

"Yes sir."

* * *

"Dad, Dad! Daddy!" Lydia was hauling Remy from the cabby who'd hastily drove them to the Kelly Manor on the west side of town once he saw she was the alleged missing daughter of the senator. Eliza was there to open the door when the ruckus got too loud, and the weary mother was shocked to see her only daughter running into her arms.

"Honey, honey! HONEY COME QUICK!" Senator Kelly quickly stumbled down the grand spiraling staircase and rubbed his eyes before putting on his glasses. When the lenses corrected his vision he couldn't believe what he was seeing, Lydia! And…her friend. Remy smiled cheekily at the disgruntled father, wrapping an arm around Lydia.

"Hi there, dad," he teased the senator, not a smart thing to do, "nice of us to drop in, huh?"

"You get out of my house right n—"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Eliza snapped at him, petting Lydia's hair feverishly. She was so happy to have her daughter back! "He stays with us."

"But Eliza—"

"He kept her safe! He's staying!" She barked in an explosively loud, harsh voice that made the 'all-powerful' senator retract. "Feel free to take you up a room, dear." smiled Eliza to Remy, shutting the front door softly. "You're more than welcome to stay." Remy smiled brightly, bowing to her. Once again, the now runaway couple proceeded to try and sleep again, sure it was now coming upon seven in the morning, but they were exhausted. Eliza and the senator himself, however, had received better sleep and were now ready to relay to the public that the daughter was back safe at home, the alleged kidnapper released of all criminal charges, and that the would-be killer was still on the loose.

* * *

"Night Remy," Lydia snuggled down in her own room, taking comfort in the fact Remy was there. She'd become attached to him despite the anger she originally felt for being held captive, and found solace in him even more when he prevented the gunman from killing them both. His fingers slipped in hers, the body crashing on the pillow next to her and falling into deep sleep almost instantly, or so she thought.

"I had no idea that you were a mutant, mah dear." his fingers trailed up her arm and he smiled from behind her. "That is pretty amazing, especially for someone who looks like you."

"Now is not the time for your flattery." Lydia jammed a pillow between them, "I'm very tired."

They'd slept for a good eight hours, the skylight pouring in from her two grand windows carved into the east wall aglow with three-in-the-afternoon light. It was a rather golden and sunny day, her old room exploding with the soft peachy hues that had been given to her as a child; and all the teenage-sized furniture, shimmered with a cleanly finish. Two nightstands, a large work desk, a full length body mirror, a smaller rectangular mirror hung above the work desk pushed against the north wall two feet away from her stark white door, four bookshelves on the west wall, caged her in an area of comfort and serenity. Suddenly they heard it, and Lydia stumbled crazily from the bed, her father was shouting for her mother. Some monstrously large mechanical beast painted purple that looked like a scorpion with a bloated round, center complete with a top hatch scuttled across the lawn after her mother.

"A Prowler." she whispered in horror, fingers trembling along the windowsill as she could only watch. Remy opened the window quickly, having dealt with these when they chased him down personally on the collar retrieval mission he did for the hot young scientist under Kelly. That girl couldn't hold a candle to his Country Smiler. He tossed a random card from his deck out towards the Prowler, watching it explode into fiery legs and bits on the front lawn. There had also been a name howled into the sky, and sadly, no one but Eliza and senator Kelly (seeing as how he yelled it) knew what it was, the explosion of the Prowler shading it. All at once Senator Kelly had his man, he knew who the gunman was, and he knew the witnesses—the key to putting this man away—he would have to investigate.

When he left that morning, the quick screeching reverse out of the driveway marked the pilgrimage to find these people, a team he'd organized himself. It would start with Dr. Sybil Zane and Dr. Kavita Rao.


	7. Chapter 7

The Last Great Steal

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Opening notes: No new reviews yet, a little sad but still, the number of hits and views are good. I guess I'll continue…question, I was talking with a friend of mine concerning this story and she suggested that –perhaps--I make a sequel. What do you think? Do you guys want a sequel or is it good as it is, left alone and as one story? Hits: **183**, Visitors: **85**. There are two chapters left, so enjoy it while it lasts :]

* * *

**| One Final Gamble |**

Tendrils of black smoke pirouetted away from the Prowler remains as Lydia and Gambit continued to stay rooted, plastered, against the window. Had that really happened? Fragments of the almost-homicide they narrowly avoided flashed in his mind, causing the currently in-action member of the Thieves' Guild to wrap an arm around the waist of his 'cargo'. Remy LeBeau's stomach soured, knotting up into a runway of chaos as even his neck hairs stood on end; being a wanted man himself, the Prowler had been an ultimatum from the one trying to kill them. This also pointed out, at least to Remy, the killer himself acknowledged the fact someone had caught wind of him and his days were numbered.

There was a ghost of mint-scented breath still rolling over his left cheek and he hardly realized it, eyes fixated on the smoldering government project damaging the lawn…well, he didn't recognize the sensation of breath upon his own skin until a pair of lips stamped themselves lightly to the skin of his face. His eyes widened. Lydia was kissing him? To confirm this, Remy looked down at the girl exactly seven inches shorter than him and saw her flittering eyelids finally finish drawing back the horizontal curtains on the honey eyes, indicating that she had kissed him, and closed her eyes. "Thanks for blowing it up, you saved my mom." her elbow lightly prodded his abdomen and he absently curled his fingers around her waist, tearing his crimson eyes from the wreckage spewed across the front yard and gazing down into a brushed field of silky brunette grass.

"It was mah pleasure, couldn't let the woman who defended me get stomped by something that's only supposed to target mutants…" that single sentence spurred something in him, both a genius thing and one of ruin. Thoughts, the spurred object, and something most people won't feel thankful to have but instantly crumble to pieces without it, should it ever be torn away, and this curse—ingrown pleasure—made Remy feel sick for a second time. He was a danger to her, and her family. Simple thoughts, however, is what kept him alive, between employers, and none more so than the ones he'd secretly crafted while he lay beside her those four sweet nights that had recently turned to five. His lips pressed together to let more words fly free, none of them amorous or biting, sly or even insinuating, and they all died in a horrible crash landing coating the floor beneath their feet.

Words of his currently ostracized by his lips would probably never see the light of day, content with being tormenting thoughts.

_You can't stay._

_Her family is being targeted because of you._

_They were almost shot because of you._

_The two of you were almost shot because of you._

_It's not possible make a relationship out of this chaos. You're still a wanted man._

_Yes, you are still a wanted man, even if it's not by her. Police still want you; X-Men still want you._

_They all want to put their hands on you, and lock you away._

_Senator Kelly, secretly, more than likely, still wants you dead like all the other ones. The only reason you're still alive is because you returned his daughter._

_You can't stay, or be with her because you're nothing but a thief. That's all you are, it's in your blood; you were raised by thieves! Nothing will ever change that. I know…I know that. I know you, I know me._

_And yet…for as much as I am forsaken, had I not been what I am, I never would have met you._

Remy's tense grip on the windowsill finally faded, his eyes burned with tears his body refused to cry while the thoughts battered him. They were right, the sane side of himself was right. He couldn't stay, it wasn't safe; the only reason he'd dare stick around this long was to fulfill some shot desire at romance. That hadn't even happened, and he was unraveling at the numbing hands of affection. Minimal things he was granted, and the intoxication of a woman held in regard was the sweetest steal ever, only in this case, where it was true, would it be brief but eternally sweet.

He and Lydia had been through a lot together, and his past persistence of pushing away whatever feelings he held for her had finally ebbed into nothingness. A raw desire overcame him, cooking his blood like nothing he'd ever remembered to feel. Remy still wanted her, and wanted to feel the tender kisses that had been denied to him in his life of stealing and running. Well, he was here, and he'd yet to fulfill his true contract with Punter on account of the employer being deceased, so he still must be an active thief by logic, so he—in this silent moment of what should have been gratitude and a chance to repent at the hands of the parents of his abducted one—was still stealing. Remy was stealing her, stealing from her…

His lips brushed hers in a sweet and teasing half circle; bittersweet mixing with the plush and refined as the tainting set in. Her taste was infecting him, and he felt it burning on his lips with the morose buzz of the reality before him, blatantly screaming what neither of them dared to. Reality, truth, and the imminent to happen. The relationship itself was warped, the love still effervescent and true, and the passion incredible once let loose from its cage of denial; but the action itself was the last great cling to a final thread hung above a maelstrom of hope. She fit in his arms perfectly, like he was meant to hold her, and Remy quit the wild tangle of tongues to inhale deeply at her ear, clutching her to him and begging her to runaway with him.

That was his only talent. Running, and stealing. In this moment when they were alone, heated by passion, he was trying to persuade both into life, with her as his muse. Her eyes twinkled with the rheum of ecstasy associated with her acceptance of him, of his actions, and let the conniving kisses run rampant across her ear and down her neck. This is what she'd wanted, this romance, and even in the absurdity of their relationship—despite it—she wanted him.

"Remy…I can't, I—"

"Shh, just…look," his hands cupped her face and he pressed his nose lightly to her up thrust forehead. "You're old enough to be on your own so why don't you just come with me?"

"It's not that easy, I can't just leave my parents, especially after this!"

"You can't leave your parents or you don't want to?" his eyes blinked at her, letting lose a rheum of his own composed of sadness, obstinacy, fevered love, and guilt. Guilt for asking her to abandon her own life and come to enrich his with the spice of their forbidden antics, to let him sully her with the divine sins of someone who wanted to ravage the insane innocence of her mind frame, and teach her all of his twisted tricks. "I'm a very stubborn person," he reminded her, thinking back to that one solitary moment that put the world on pause and sparked the insane want of her in his being. He held her in his arms, drugged and swooned like a spurned innocent being saved from some unseen, unspoken horror; and he'd enjoyed it. Her silky skin had been his desire and his drive for living as long as he did, despite the things that trailed after them.

His fingers were caught in the live strands being gently paddled by the wind, and he pressed his lips to hers in vain attempt to transfer his unyielding will into her being. It failed, but they stayed entangled for a good two hours. If he couldn't walk away with the cash, at least he could walk away with memories of this. The only woman to manipulate LeBeau successfully as he'd done to the other meaningless resources in the past, and the taste of her doomed to live on forever, with him. Suddenly there was a heavy crackling and LeBeau broke from the romance with heavy, soft gasps of air; looking at the ice-composed mutant standing on his walkway of ice.

"We could use your help," said Bobby Drake, "Wolverine says you can shut down the Prowlers pretty fast. They're all over the city."

"We'll finish this later." LeBeau promised, grazing his lips over Lydia's in one last sour-sweet massage, one last spark of hope for the switch to flip and send her mind into reconsideration. He really didn't want to leave without her. Or rather, maybe, he didn't want to leave without so many pieces of himself missing. He found himself accepting the hand of the teen and pulling his weight up onto the ice pathway, joined by another as the slid along the twist of frozen water into the main center of chaos. Remy blew them up easily, not even realizing that over the course of events that had sewn Lydia so deeply into his heart, he'd lost so many of his precious cards.

Logan and the others were there, too, fighting the good fight and trying to demolish them. Remy was down to his last eight cards, and promptly stowed them away upon feeling the lack of laminated cardboard run smoothly between his nimble fingers. Lydia used her high-pitched ability to screw up the Prowler's sonar detection and attack each other instead of the mutant targets. It was taxing, though, and as the numbers of Prowlers increased—from some unholy direction, a cavern in which they were probably infinite and stowed away—her screech softened and soon died off. The body parts began to pile up and the battle began to take its toll; even on those who wouldn't declare it so, more Prowlers growled and whirred, emerging from a hard left pocket between two buildings.

"We need to retreat," explained Hank McCoy, otherwise known as Beast to the feral Logan, "there's too many of them and Bobby can't even create a simple frost anymore. He's running out of steam, so to speak." there was a defiant growl and Hank shook his head as he plunged from an air-born leap into the center of a Prowler creeping up on Bobby. Logan would have to give up soon, with the shrapnel coming close to announcing the past lives of twenty Prowlers, he knew even he didn't have enough steam to combat more.

"Alright," Logan finally considered, "we'll retreat." the Prowlers seemed to hear that and they all swiveled to the circle of mutants stitched back to back against one another. By some grace of God, however, they no longer lived. Whoever had activated them shut them down, and whether they meant to or not, they did it with impeccable timing. They all began to run, least they abuse the gift of chance, and receded into the Xavier Institute.

* * *

She parked in a vacant spot before the police station and took her purse with her; tossing dark strands of hair over her shoulder as a soothing motion, knowing in her stone-heavy stomach what she'd been called in for. She always knew that he'd go crazy, and now, he had. Kavita Rao sighed, clasping her shaky hands together as the butter-yellow light gave complimenting and vivid tones to her currently gaunt face drawn in with fear and the tanned skin wrinkling unhappily with her expression. "Hi," a female officer proffered her hand and smiled warmly, taking a pen from behind her right ear and tapping it gently to the office pad she held in her hands. "My name is Holly Cycles and I'd just like you to relax ma'am, we're currently undergoing investigation of one of your old co-workers and would like to know if you know or have seen anything suspicious about him within the last few days of his employment." the comforting smile and the gentle leading hand took Kavita by her right arm and led her to what looked like an interrogation room.

"I know what you're thinking," Holly was fairly good at reading people's expressions, no matter how haggard they looked, "we're not going to interrogate you like we do the real bad guys. It's gonna be like a nice and friendly chat." her commanding officer Herman Briggs was waiting on the other side of the one-way mirror with field officers Norma and James observing the soon-to-be spectacle.

"You still got that other woman lined up?" asked Briggs curiously as he sipped lightly at his coffee. James nodded, cracking his knuckles. "I'm glad they decided to come forward, this will really help it out."

"Well apparently Kavita was going to sue him over not returning a pair of tweezers he'd borrowed from her. She found them in his desk drawer crusted in red, she got real mad." Brigg's eyes glinted, catching that. Red could mean blood. That immediately made him think of Punter, he and their current suspect for the open shooting had done a little bit of dealing together, and the boys he'd sent to delve into that murder scene couldn't produce a bullet. Who's to say the lack of bullet wasn't coming from the use of someone's tweezers?

"I'd like someone to get me a warrant to go into the scientific office and attain some of the possible evidence." James handed him an official government document and Briggs smiled. "Good work, I'm going to go check it out now. Let me know what happens." he clapped the man on his shoulder and walked away in a brisk manner, mind whirring joyously at the prospect of finding enough to lock this man up. Briggs got into the station-issued police car and turned on his siren to make sure he got their fast enough before the lab closed, setting his coffee in a cup holder and taking off. Of course, the thought always crossed his mind to jump the gun and ask senator Kelly what he thought, as the man was adamant claiming to know who their mystery man was, but thought better of it due to his sought-out rate by the man in question. He made it five minutes to closing time and the security guard there, upon seeing it a matter of official investigation; let him in for the last five minutes.

Herman immediately targeted Kavita's desk, then Sybil's, and lastly, his. Inside of Kavita's desk he found the tweezers in question that were, indeed crusted over with blood and Briggs put on latex gloves as he plucked them from amongst pack-rat like cluttering of paper, paper clips, and pre-sharpened pencils, to put in his evidence baggy. Continuing to pillage her desk Herman carefully removed the papers she had stowed in the large drawer, leafing through them slowly, should anything jump out at him. Nothing. He moved on to Sybil's desk, snooping around and lifting this and that to find any scrap of evidence. The only thing that could be evidence was a sticky-note sized piece of paper with _March fifth_ _03: 05: 24. Camera four_ written on it, he soon found a second one hiding on the right side of her computer monitor, scrawled across it was _March eight 09: 22: 45. Camera two._

His office was very meticulous, orderly, and perhaps describing a man with OCD. Not one thing was out of place, or even held a dust outline, as Briggs scanned the entire area. Nothing would go unnoticed, and nothing unsearched. His first appliance victim was the paper shredder, knowing it was common of criminals to try and erase their tracks he literally dumped the contraption and shifted through the scraps in order to find something. He found a long telephone bill connected to his house, one for a cell phone, and a receipt of purchase towards two boxes of ammo for a .45. Herman grinned, he had his man.

* * *

"He took my tweezers on Tuesday and then gave them back on Wednesday with something gross on the end of them!" Kavita was actually very child-like but honest in the interview, which made Holly smile. "There was no way I was touching them, so he dropped them back in the drawer of my desk. I'm not quite sure what he said as he walked out but I didn't really care because I was too busy cussing him out for dirtying my tweezers. That's the last time I let him borrow anything from me!" She huffed, crossing her arms as she remembered all the vibrant and non-workplace appropriate words she'd spat at him.

"And did you notice him do anything different or abnormal before he borrowed your tweezers, or after?" asked Holly quietly. She was very tired from the questioning, assuming she'd gleaned all she could from this co-worker and only prayed that James or Herman were more successful than she. Somehow, she hoped, all of this would tie together.

"He kept putting more things in the paper shredder."

"Okay," Holly felt like she was dealing with a nervous child. "Anything else?"

"I remember he always tried to avoid the security cameras after…uh, March fifth, I think it was. I don't know why, but he did."

"Anything else?"

"He always had his hands on his badge, like someone was going to take it away from him, and he talked to Brian Zickers a lot."

"And who is Brian Zickers?" the name rang a bell somewhere in the back of her mind but she couldn't place it.

"He picks up our garbage from time to time in the big industrial dumpster outside the lab and takes it to the junkyard. Used to work with us but got fired for presenting a fire arm in the workplace." Holly made a note beneath all the other ones on her yellow note pad to converse with the other cops about later.

"Any last bit of information you want to tell me about before I let you go, ma'am?"

"If he wore an actual jacket, like a sweat-shirt looking hoodie, he'd always have the hood up. He even left work once to go make sure just one jacket was dry cleaned properly. He's nuts…"

"Alright, thanks a lot ma'am, have a safe drive. Call us if anything else pops up." better not give her that much free leash, thought Cycles, "Anything relevant to the case, I mean." She had no doubt in her mind that the jacket Kavita rambled about was the one their killer was wearing in the videotape confiscated from the Le Del Hara Hotel lobby camera, or the one bystanders claimed the 'Kelly Gunman' had donned the day of the failed murder attempt. All she knew for certain, however, is that they would have their guy by tomorrow morning.

* * *

Kelly was about to give his public conference and he shut down the Prowlers he'd let loose just to be able to hear the man, no doubt about the new matter at hand concerning his and his family's health. He watched him with angry green eyes, glowering—drilling—into the man who had single-handedly ruined him for the sake of his own preachy daughter. No matter, he thought, petting the gun stowed in his jacket from his vantage point behind the large marble pillar holding up the wrought iron gate, if I can't kill your daughter I can always kill you. You were the one who fired me, after all. The man was giving a speech, and he listened with hardly any interest, waiting for a keen moment to fire. Only one round in the chamber this time, and he was intent on making it count.

"Beloved citizens I thank you for the outreaching arms of concern, love, support, and ever-present and unyielding devotion you embrace me with. My family and I would like to thank you very much, for if it wasn't for your eyes and ears my daughter may not be safe at home right now. If it weren't for you amazing people standing before me right now, we wouldn't be as close as we are to bagging the criminal who has tried to tear my family and myself apart time and time again. Thank you; I would not be who I am without you all today." He sneered, did he write that himself? It was sure cheesy enough, and probably more than equivalent to his thinking or true grade level. Something inside of him flickered, sparking fear where there should have only been cold determination, fierce hatred, and an iron-solid ability to carry out the shooting. Were they really that close to him? No, it couldn't be, it had to be impossible!

Not him, not when he'd thought out everything so meticulously! He felt around for his cell phone, to try and call Brian Zickers in case the police force came inquiring of the purchase of his old .45 that actually lay in his left hand right there, shaking and shining. Only receiving an answering machine he sighed exasperatedly into it, hissing out "Zickers, do not tell them anything or I swear I'll come and hunt you down with your own contraption!"

"_Oh really?" _He audibly choked on his own words, breath stopping as he realized just who had answered and what must've undoubtedly happened to Brian Zickers. It was Herman Briggs, of the local police force talking back to him. Now that he listened, frozen in fear with his heart beating painfully at his ribs, did he hear Brian Zickers selling him out to avoid jail, as he'd already been there once and didn't find it suitable for him. _"I'd suggest you stay put, unless you want to tack a few years more onto the sentence you'll already be getting when the court finds you guilty for attempted murder and two counts of murder, along with assault with a deadly weapon." _that was it. The last of his sanity, his refined composure, shattered.

"Oh, but you see, it doesn't count for 'assault with a deadly weapon' unless something good comes out of the assault!" his hands no longer shook and her cradled the phone between his neck and left shoulder as he took aim. He knew the instant it fired with the fire-cracker like pop scattering all the people from the meeting, he would have to drop the cell phone and run for his life. What he didn't know, however, is that there were red-eye cops parked in the shadows, waiting on him to run. They had their man; they had their evidence thanks to Kavita and Sybil.

"_Don't do it," _the casual spell Herman Briggs could usually cast over the crazies that he'd come to arrest, or even help out from a personal problem, failed to work here. He knew he was dealing with one spurned man gone too far in the depths of his own madness to pull out the soul that still required help. The innocent piece was lost. There was no man inside the cold shell he spoke to, only a pulse of vengeance. _"You're life will only get worse if you pull that trigger B—"_ the gunshot drowned out his own name as the Senator suddenly collapsed back, like he was a cardboard person and sheets of water had knocked him over into a deficient state, blood blossoming and slowly trickling from a wound in his chest.

The cell phone which he had worked so cautiously on, operating from, and used so much time to protect it from the nosy neighbors who would undoubtedly turn him into police for it once realizing what had been done from that phone, would most definitely be trampled, and that was fine. People began to scatter, as they had the first time, and would surely smash it to bits. He ran and ran, ran until his breath was nothing more than short, futile wheezes of air intake and his legs turned to numb, wobbling towers of jelly beneath his body. Suddenly two men bull-rushed him from an alcove created by a house and side of the community fence dressed in leafy grapevines. "On the ground, on the ground!" one of them shouted—a third officer to apprehend him—as it took two to simply hold down his flailing body and secure him in handcuffs.

His apprehender, a female, shoved him quite rudely into the car, yanking down his jacket hood and mumbling under her breath profanities, it was who she thought it was, and slammed the door tightly shut behind him. Such a great mind had lay in ruins now, and it was a sad sight to see. James radioed Briggs or whoever remained at the station this late. "We have the Kelly Shooter," he said to the radio, "We have the Kelly Shooter."


	8. Chapter 8

The Last Great Steal

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Opening notes: Due to lack of response on the matter any chance of a sequel at this point in time is shut down. Perhaps I'll come back around and create one later, but as of right now, no dice. This story has **298 hits **and I thank you for every one of those. That is a fabulous number, my lovelies and I do adore the fact people are so entertained with this. It makes writing it worthwhile, also big, heartfelt thanks goes out to the **139 visitors** to Remy's little adventure! One more chapter left :] and on the next chapter we shall say _Au revoir_! Warning: slightly mature themes present in this chapter. And a warning for the next chapter, too, the same goes. The last chapter will be more graphic, however.

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**| The Worst Hand |**

Lydia Keller rolled to her right with a soft smile, a good night's sleep handing her off to the sweet morning sunshine as she carefully crawled out of her bed. Remy had slept with her again, and he was still pressed quite contently against the large marshmallow-like pillows and snoring—spread eagle—amongst the tangle of sheets; his hand branched out fluidly, lazily over the warmth of where her body had lain and he rolled over to embrace the site. The warble of his snore followed her into the bathroom, striking tones of serenity and pity in her heart. He was going to leave her, she knew he was…he was a thief, after all, and what better life for a thief than one of roaming? She dried her face with gentle pats on a wash rag before gingerly shutting the door behind her and turning about face to see a very groggy and confused Remy just pushing himself to an upright position to squint at her through sleepy crimson eyes.

"Come on, time to get up. Dad wants you at a speech he's going to give today." Lydia found that the only language the man from the Bayou roughly spoke besides his own suave French tongue was one of romance. Feather light, she pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, trailing her fingers through his curls and smiling as he looked more willing to collapse into himself and return to sleep. He groaned and Lydia grinned, sliding off the man she'd straddled and snatched up a pillow, batting him with it until he made a more agreeable sound. "Get up!" She clambered off the bed and picked out her dress of choice for the occasion, a baby blue summer dress styled like a halter top for the cut, and rolled her hands along his tee seductively before escaping into the bathroom. Remy sat up for sure when he heard the click of the lock on the bathroom door and stared at the floor for a couple of minutes…was he really doing the right thing by leaving?

LeBeau didn't particularly like the evil glares her father gave him, and didn't find this to be his sort of lifestyle. Too many people trying to kill the mutants here, too much Prowler nonsense, and certainly too much Logan. "Good ol' Remy's gonna do what he does best…" finally decided, the thief rummaged around his bag to make sure everything was accounted for prior to slipping some of Lydia's lesser known delicates into the bag. Just because he was leaving didn't mean he was leaving empty handed. True the dame wasn't coming with him, but perhaps having to track him down for some of her clothes would suffice.

Smoothing out her dress when she emerged Remy didn't try to mask the fact he checked her out, eyes scalding and sliding over every curve he could see. Not a bad color on her, and it most certainly brought out the tiny tan the Country Smiler held to her name. He saw the tie hanging crookedly on her finger and immediately shook his head, trying to dislodge the enchanting arms creeping around his neck and locking at the nape. "Remy LeBeau doesn't do ties, dahlin'." Her face pressed close to his and mascara coated eyelashes plumed like elegant peacock feathers on display as she turned the charm up notches in her honey eyes. LeBeau was beginning to doubt and mentally correct all the people who'd called him "The Devil", given the morphine-like kisses turning molten on his pale skin; she was quite the match.

Just as charming in her own odd way, able to give the intoxicating kisses that left him stapling her to his radar in need of more. That was the bad thing about her, though, she made him needy, and that just wasn't Remy's style. But how could he resist the temptation or the heat of passion she so incited within him? She was his greatest challenge and something he would one day steal to conform and relax in such a way that he wanted, only beside him. Devil's spice, that's what he remembered thinking about her the first time they met, and what better company for "The Devil" than Devil's Spice?

Not a damn thing. Remy's head began to defog as her tongue finally slipped out of his mouth and left the cinnamon curling of bliss to die on his own desperately flailing tongue, the muscle trailing along his teeth in vain to keep her taste alive. "Thank you." Lydia whispered, kissing the little spot hiding under his cute earlobe, smirking as she tugged on the tie to perfect the knot. Instantly the Cajun glared down at the tie, drawing his miffed expression up for her to see, only to have it quelled by a fancifully mastered tongue and a pair of sweet lips against his own. Remy pouted but refrained from his tantrum enough to keep an arm around her as she continued to silently display and gloat upon her romantically-won battle.

"I hate you." of course he didn't, he couldn't. It did annoy him how he could go into the Xavier Manor, for crying out loud, make it out of there _alive _with something precious, and yet be swayed by a pair of sweet lips belonging to the Country Smiler. She smiled and pressed lightly against him when he'd finally shrugged on a different trench coat to somewhat match the tie she was so adamant on him wearing and took her hand to enter the dining area of the grand home.

"I hate you, too." Lydia joked back, scratching under his chin—Remy shrugged her fingers away by squashing them between his chin and neck—as her mother clapped excitedly at their entrance.

"Oh it's great! Come here, you have to see it!" a very worn out Senator Kelly had just been picked up from the hospital no less than an hour ago and was managing to relax against the insanely plush cushions of the couch inside the connected living room. It still hurt the old man to move, given the bullet that had been fished of him, but it could have been worse. He'd thanked God a thousand times over that whoever tried to kill him had been a poor marksman. Lydia laced her fingers with Remy's and dragged him delicately into the living room; the taller man pressing up against her from behind as he set his hands on her hips to watch the recorded 'Breaking News' media report. Eliza mashed the volume button in with her manicured thumb nail and grinned widely at the impressive HD TV screen displaying a blown-up image of their local news team narrating the sullen picture to the left of some woman that wasn't the focus of any of their current attention.

"_Bolivar Trask was arrested late last night after his failed shooting on Senator Kelly. Co-workers who shall remain unidentified have supplied us with footage from his area of work to prove that he received the .45 with chamber markings and matching bullets connecting him not only to the Senator's shooting but others as well. Our own Nancy Carlyle was on the scene trying to get some answers."_ the still frame of Bolivar Trask in handcuffs finally enlarged and began to roll like a film as he stumbled down from a courthouse with baby steps that would disable his chance of tripping in the leg shackles. He avoided all the microphones at all cost, shied his head away from the storm of flashing lights produced by camera press heads that made him want to howl in rage and plead blindness. Nancy Carlyle, armed with a microphone colored with a red dot given the number 'six' for the channel, thrust hers almost directly to his lips, screeching out 'Why?' over the others in the press crowd doing the same. Trask continued to elbow press and media alike out of his way before he was tucked safely in a cop car and driven back to his cell. The woman who'd brought him down, the currently famous Holly Cycles, was now answering tons of questions before the innumerable paparazzi ravenous for answers.

"_We're looking in to why he's done what he has, and we already have three psychiatrics and psychologists on the case keeping us posted if anything comes to their attention. Rest assured he will not be getting release anytime soon; Judge Foster has given him life without parole, so we can all sleep safely. Senator Kelly and his family remain unharmed and the Senator himself was safely shipped from the hospital this morning, the bullet did not hit anything vital and was a poor shot. Everything is under control and as we learn things so will the public. Thank you, and have a nice day." _She tipped her police hat and set it right atop her compiled blonde hair tucked in an elegant French bun to keep it all under control. The recorded segment went off and the air inside the Kelly house exploded into an icy sweet breeze of relief, joy, and untamed girlish squeals provided by the mother and daughter. Senator Kelly was too busy trying to safeguard his ears at the sound to even think of wincing in pain, which he only did minutes after with a cantankerous exhale.

"And I suppose that means I have you to thank," carefully the Senator got up and made his way to Remy, who simply gauged the old man with mild interest and confusion, his brunette eyebrow launching up out of curiosity. "Had you not kidnapped her for your absurd reason, she probably would've been dead a long time ago. Thank you." Remy put his hands up as if he'd been caught in thieving and was about to be arrested as the father embraced him. Hugging other guys wasn't his style. Lydia and Eliza both gave him tempered glares loaded with insufferable heat that diminished with a silent hiss, resolving into cooler, neutral, and more normal expressions as the peppered husband-father turned to lounge again on the couch. To save his skin from the sour glares that had gone unseen he twined his arms around the vivacious Country Smiler and nibbled upon her, much to her mother's and her own protest, but took delight in the action and continued to romance her.

Her mother and father, much to Lydia's surprise, were not keeling over at the scene (not too horribly). "Well you're not a teenager anymore! For God sakes Lydia, you're a grown woman!" her cheeks went a deeper scarlet as Remy's laugh tickled the sensitive—hotspot—area of the left portion of her collarbone. Lydia's ten fingers mashed against his face in vain to pry her leech-like interest from her neck, dismayed to find a rather large and sensitive hickey blooming at his lips' leave. LeBeau was quite the opposite, smirking as if he'd just won a solid gold trophy to wave under people's noses for the rest of his life. "We're heading to the limo, don't be any later than ten minutes," Lydia could hear her mother's dark tone of warning flying high above the stormy seas she felt Remy creating just by placing himself in the proximity of her skin.

The waves begun to grow, and crashed upon her, drawing up a wreckage of goose bumps and repressed moans lightly muffled until the mother's clicking-clacking heels faded outside the door, and they were restrained no longer. Remy grinned as he took the tepid body in his hands, only to place her with a 'thump' against the wall to lavish her with more romance. He couldn't take it…he couldn't stay but he didn't quite want to leave. Above all, he wanted her, and she wouldn't come with him. LeBeau ultimately knew he'd be leaving insatiable and emotionally wounded, not willing to admit—from a thing called pride—someone had finally pulled one over him and escaped with something precious from himself, personally.

She made light and innocent moaning noises, baby things that he devoured with an insane greed. The Country Smiler was his perfect victim. Steaming butterfly kisses tap danced lightly down her skin until his mouth caressed the soft and heated prized jewel and reversed the veins of fiery desire running through her. Her lips were hardly moist, as if his had wrung every capability to moisture from them, and he livened them with the lilt of his skilled tongue flexing across the satin content on falling lax one second and livid the next. His hand traced her thigh through the material of the dress, a true whispering satin entangling his fingers, and LeBeau edged up the fabric until a lightly tanned leg was exposed at full length. God she was gorgeous, and Remy found himself reconciling all of his concentration, his will, into not letting this heated rendezvous get out of hand.

The way her tongue twisted and cajoled his own drove the Cajun crazy. Insane for Devil's Spice. He exhaled a particularly musty breath against her left cheek, watching the honey eyes flutter open and shut with confusion and bliss, before he submerged himself in the succulent folds of the skin exposed by her dress, making the room echo with his last few parting gifts to her. Remy pulled the dazed and dreamily staring woman from the floor, running his fingers through her hair to disguise the messy mayhem that had occurred just short of the back door, and smiled at her; controlling the roll of her neck with the fingers hiding in her hair. She smiled at him, pulling his hands out of her hair before grabbing him by his tie and placing a sweet kiss on his aching mouth, one of the many parts that craved more of her.

"We're going to be late if we don't hurry, come on." with as rowdy as they could get in their passionate make outs, Remy always found quiet pleasure in simply holding her hand. There wasn't any other woman he could honestly say that for. He climbed into the back seat of a limo, Lydia explaining their destination to the chauffer as she soon found herself in the Cajun's embrace again. "Remy," Lydia was finding it hard to hold back giggles or the softest of moans as he refused to let her go from his arms, "we have to get out, control!" the Cajun had found her tickle spot and began to torture her with the play of his fingers across her petite sides. His lips scaled across her neck and upper torso just when his hands had found the secret entrance beneath the halter top strap, and found the body slipping away beneath the wanting fingers, the woman before him securing the knot once more.

"Remy LeBeau gets what Remy LeBeau works for, remember?" Remy physically stopped himself this time, too happy and too concerned with his public appearance should he continue. He was already having to think of some pretty disgusting images to retain what good public image he had despite being a thief, holding in a sigh as his pants loosened again. Lydia smiled, relishing the old line and what memories it had brought back. Even in the old memories, though, she couldn't shake the feeling rattling in her bones, flashbacks of the earlier conversation occurring yesterday wanting to make her vomit. He really was leaving…

"You're still leaving, aren't you?" Her hand slowed as it traveled down his arms, the honey orbs afraid to look up at his own waiting crimson eyes. She didn't want to hear him say it. Thankfully, he didn't, he danced around a straight answer so superbly that it didn't hurt her delicate china body when he took her in his arms and prayed for something else good to come out. A lie, perhaps, since he couldn't seem to make those of free will anymore…at least, not in front of her. Frankly, denial wasn't his best subject, and he could think of nothing better than to tell her the truth since they couldn't come to a peaceful agreement on location.

One wanted to run out of habit, and one wanted to stay for security.

"Ol' Remy just doesn't belong in a place like dis…" the car was rolling to a stop and he felt the numbing hum of the floorboards cease as his hand carefully slid across the chilly, tented window. "Too much noise and chaos. Back in the Bayou nothin' was dis crazy. Didn't have people comin' after mah girl so much." despite the tint hiding them from public eyes Remy could see the glowing, doting smile of his Country Smiler gaining resilience at the remark. It was true, she was his. Had been for the last three weeks. "Certainly didn't have other mutants tryin' to kill me, life was just a little bit simpler, which is what I'm goin' for right now." a genteel hand lay softly upon her right knee and he massaged the smooth flesh, patting it reassuringly.

"I ain't gonna forget you though, if you don't come wit me, that is. Remy's never gonna forget his girl, no?" He let lose his confident and swaying smile, watching the girl in his arms press her hands lightly to his chest and stand on her tiptoes to kiss him back. Tracing light circles on her back as the chauffer locked up the car he gave an 'ahem' to separate the two conjoined at the lips. "New Orleans will be happy to see me, at any rate."

"_I'm_ happy to see you!" Lydia was beginning to pout, as Remy thought she would. He simply smiled at her again, tilting her chin up and stealing another kiss before she promptly ended the matter and drug him into their reserved niche Eliza had saved them. LeBeau tried to coax her into a smiling state, failing, as the hands at her waist were given little recognition. The unappreciated hands circled around her waist, holding her to him (he, himself, knowing that as soon as this little ceremony ended he'd be gone) as a last attempt of burning precious memories—swaying her to elope—were grasped by his brain. She would never fade away from his fingers.

Bolivar Trask, murderer of two and attempted murderer of at least four, was paraded around like an animal before them. Senator Kelly had pulled him from his cell for this marvelous ceremony, calling it an opportunity to reconcile with the madman and—in actuality—blatantly deny by public eye the undoubted wrong he'd bestowed upon this human. Still, it made the Senator look like the good guy, stuff like this always did. Trask was led down carefully in his shackles, ordered by the tazer kissing his neck ever so gently with the acerbic tickles of electricity, to apologize and shake the hands of the Kelly family. Finally he couldn't take the crusted blood any longer and went to shake Lydia's hand, the instant their hands connected he pulled out an infantile dagger, no bigger than a closed fit, and jammed it poorly between two f her nearest ribs—an attempt at assassin style.

Remy's hand launched out involuntarily and smashed in to the ex-scientist's nose. Blood flew everywhere. Lydia's however, detained itself and dyed the color of her happy summer dress a more somber, muddled mix between crimson, purple, and navy blue. People ran amuck again, mostly the crowd trying to gouge the convicted criminal's eyes out as the Kelly family screeched for an ambulance, the hidden X-Men in the crowd getting to her first. How could they not be there when so long ago Logan had picked up the post as her Godfather?

The Wolverine took the quivering girl in his arms, listening to her spasm as she tried to exert enough force upon the open wound to minimize the blood flow. Remy was not far behind. Kurt Wagner had teleported the three inside the Xavier Institute, enabling them to get help quicker for the fading woman as Hank and Storm frantically hooked her up into the infirmary. Eliza arrived before her husband, clasping on to Kitty Pryde as she tried to calm the woman down and guide her up the steps to walk in on quite the amazing sight. Remy LeBeau, known for doing almost anything to get what he wanted, was sitting as placidly as possible next to her bedside, holding one of her pallid hands for comfort, to keep himself together, as the IV continued to pull blood from his system and feed it to her.

"She'll be just fine." Storm soothed, holding the old woman as she cried, knowing her daughter had yet again escaped the hands of death.

* * *

He sat down, away from her hospital bed as the chauffer that had earlier deposited him at the announcement scene gone amiss, brought him the lone bag he'd stashed at the Kelly place. Although he was all packed to leave he couldn't do so yet. Too many things remained to let him leave peacefully. As he sat in front of the blank white page no bigger than a piece of halved printer paper, thinking of what to say to her that wouldn't leave him raw before the eyes of anyone possibly intercepting the message, he knew a very attractive blonde that had quickly fallen off of his radar repressing all of her memories concerning him. She was the only one that mattered to him, the Country Smiler making a slow and tampered-with recovery in the infirmary only doors away from him.

**To Mon Cherie,**

**I will admit that our first encounter was less than an advancement for me, and quite comical on your part…but it was memorable nonetheless. You're a very tough person to catch, Cherie, much like myself. I respect that, because I do love a challenge. You do catch my eye, and I will say that I am quite interested. Money or no, I did enjoy what little time we spent together.**

**How sweet it was, mon Cherie. You have quite the lithe tongue on you, my dear. I will say that I admire your bold streak, although it took forever to show itself, it took guts to rip up my precious cards right on the other side of the bathroom door. The confetti was in no manner fun to clean up. I do believe the hardest part of this whole thing is knowing when I wake up tomorrow, back in the arms of the Big Easy, you won't be there beside me in the sheets.**

**You're the best sin on two finely tanned legs I've never met, won't you know? Quite nice, damn fine. There isn't a price too high I wouldn't pay in order to smell your sweet skin pressed against mine in the morning, mon Cherie. You are quite the charmer, despite your lack of bold display in it. I'll always be able to spot you by your smile, Cherie, the sweet Country Smile I've kept an eye out for.**

**It confuses me how that can make me insane, trying to find it…that Country Smile of yours. So few I've met have it, and yet it could look better on no one than you, Cherie. I stand by everything I said in the limo before I left. Everything. Usually when I leave I take only the finest with me, and you wouldn't follow, so perhaps this works and entices you to come and find me…I've left you things of mine that we've used only once together, to help you along the way.**

**I do like the chase now; that is divine. Especially from someone like you, no? I love you…even if I never said it in public, or for you to hear. Rest assured I said it enough while you were sleeping but that was my point, you were sleeping so softly next to me, mon Cherie; how could I dare wake such an angel with such petty words to her precious ears? In truth I did see you as something special, more of a gorgeous woman wrapped up much like a prize; beauty, brains, and wicked Devil's Spice all in one five-foot six-inch frame.**

**My prize.**

**Do come and visit me soon, Cherie; by the time you read this and begin to ask questions, I'm sure you'll want to meet again. Maybe this time you'll stay, because we both know three weeks wasn't enough. J'taime, Cherie. If you come across any questions, for the hell of it, ask your beloved Godfather…he remembers me, and I'm sure he'll tell you some horrible outright slanderous stories, pay no mind to them, Cherie, he's simply jealous. Au revoir, Mademoiselle Country Smiler.**

**Sincerely Yours. **

Rubbing the slight writing cramp out of his hand Remy LeBeau then thumbed through what had survived of his decks and grinned when he found that at least one of them had survived. Slinking in to the room with the stealth and grace becoming of his thieving status LeBeau carefully drank in the last sight of her. "I'll have left here losing more than what I came with, no?" material things didn't matter to him when he had no heart to obsess over them with. His thumb delicately raked across her sleeping cheek and he kissed the other one before ever so lightly pressing the Queen of Hearts beneath her sleeping hands, folding the fingers back over it with caution and timid gentleness. It was unbecoming of Remy not to leave some sort of mark to be remembered by, and this instance was quickly exempt from being the 'first time' famous for breaking the pattern when he found a black sharpie lying nearby.

It was one of Hank's for labeling, no doubt, but it would be used in the purpose of Remy today. The halter was undone and the loose ends laying calmly over her neck as he scrawled his name lightly and ever so carefully over her right shoulder. Just a teaser. "I hope to see you in New Orleans soon, Cherie." Remy pressed the last and final kiss to her lips via his fingers before tossing the marker back onto the table adjacent from her recovery bed and walked out, leaving a trench coat behind next to the marker. "I'll be waiting."


	9. Chapter 9

The Last Great Steal

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Opening notes: **411 hits **and **184 visitors**. Today we say goodbye to a loveable pair. I just want everyone to know that this was the most respected, rated, viewed, and hit-on story I've ever created, thank you for that. Although…and you would think—perhaps—me being the authoress of this I would know something about this but I'm not quite sure (as everyone has a different "button" so to speak) what attracted you to the story? It would be wonderful to know, and reviews wouldn't hurt. Very last chapter. Don't ask me about a sequel because I'm not sure about that yet. Please do not PM me about updates; I've had that happen before. This is the end, no more _The Last Great Steal _(at least, of this story). Again: WARNING: EXPLICIT MATERIAL WITHIN.

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**| Kings Over Queens |**

"Remy…" the word left her lips with such confusion and dreamy ardor as she dabbed the towel over the permanent marker for the third time that week that her brows were left to furrow in dismay. Who was that? Their name hadn't left her skin; no matter how much hot water she'd used or how hard she scrubbed it didn't go away. She exhaled, noting the fruitlessness of trying to place the name as she mopped the fog from the mirror; brushing out her hair and finished the buttoning up on her turquoise blouse before exiting the bathroom. Absently she tickled the permanent marker tattoo with her fingertips, scouting for Emma or Logan.

Unofficially, Lydia had taken up residence with the X-Men crew at her father's request. It bugged her—she could tell by just looking at these people that loved her—that there were things they knew she was denied from knowing. Most irking of all came from the sheer obviousness of it all orbiting around the fact that it was things about her…or this 'Remy' character…remaining hidden. "Emma! Just who I wanted to see!" Lydia Keller clapped her hands happily and the telepath gave a polite but 'oh my god not her _again_!' cheery smile made by cool blue lips stretched thin. "Can you read my mi—"

"Sorry but Logan gave me explicit instructions not to." Lydia pouted for a quick second, and then her lips quickly contorted, reversed, into a smug smile adorned with a quirked eyebrow.

"Since when do _you _ever listen to Logan?"

"I call it more of being nice than listening. He's only doing it because he has the best interest in mind for you."

"Yeah, yeah, heard this a thousand times." She caught the briskly walking woman by her gloved hand and swung her back around. "Logan's not my daddy and I don't really care what he thinks he's protecting me from. I want to know." the blonde exhaled a sigh and murmured to herself as she placed her hands to the sides of the girl's head. Lydia had a point…they shouldn't treat her like a child. She was twenty-three now. Three years of hiding Remy LeBeau from her was proving to be taxing on everyone, Scott wouldn't say much to her, Logan preferred to beat around the bush, and Emma herself was always sought out to give the others some reprieve from her questions.

"Alright, just relax." the hands wafted inches from her temple and Lydia exhaled quietly, watching images of a hotel and screaming people run through her mind. Gunshots could be heard, and an ear-splitting screech echoed down the corridors as she grabbed a brunette-haired man's hand and led him down a trembling row of stairs. A large gasp came from her lips, as if she'd just surfaced from a deep dive and Lydia's eyes flickered, honey tones humming with life and many other emotions. That must be him, the 'Remy' fellow…he had a trench coat on matching the one Logan had wrapped her up in after she was released from the Xavier mansion's infirmary. "There, that's all I'm digging up for you." Emma knew she could fully reverse her repression of all the LeBeau-related memories with just one touch, but Logan and Senator Kelly alike agreed it was unwise so she'd only been giving the girl bits and pieces back.

"Thanks." this was usual; she'd hold her head and practically float silently to her room, contemplating. Lydia sighed as she shrugged on the huge trench coat, relishing the familiar hush of it pressing against her willowy frame, before lounging lazily in her bedroom and trying to piece together what she'd seen. Last week from Emma's delving Lydia had seen what almost seemed to be a date…although she couldn't actually _see _Remy in front of her, she recognized the Cajun brogue, as she was given sunglasses, the trench coat, and maybe a hat (even her recollection of the funny memories were fuzzy) prior to walking around with him. He seemed so sweet. "We have to go to my parent's house…" why had that been what she'd said to him while running away from the hotel in the newest memory? Why was everything so hard to remember?

Rummaging around in all of the coat pockets as the thought sparked her motion, Lydia's fingers finally closed around the folded note crammed to the very bottom of her right-flank inside pocket to unfold the letter and gaze at the handwriting. "New Orleans…" Lydia whispered with heavy thought. She could go there, and find him, ask him why she couldn't piece anything together. Ask him why he left a coat and a card clasped in her fingers. She remembered her first waking moments at the infirmary, they'd said she'd hit her head pretty hard out in public and they simply wanted to make sure she was taken care of without media fuss, so she was brought here instead of a hospital.

"I know you're lying, all of you are." her face went hard in determination as she crept through the mansion to find Hank. He'd tell her the truth, and Lydia somewhat abused his generosity. She was going insane for answers. Knocking on his open door the furry blue hulk of a man smiled warmly at her and waved her into his study-like room with one hand, the second fixed intently on a microscope, as was his eye. "Why?" that was the only word she needed to even utter in this place, they all knew what it was connected to.

He grumbled a sigh and swiveled to her, gazing at her with pleading dark eyes not to wring him out for answers any more descriptive than what he'd given her – Logan would be furious to know he'd even told her half of what he did already. "Look," Lydia Keller slammed her hands down agitatedly on his little desk and glared at him dead in the center of his glasses-magnified eyes. "I know he's a thief, thanks to Emma I know a little bit about what he looks like, I know we went on a date or something like that. What else don't I know?" when she saw Hank turn away Lydia's skin stretched thin over her skull, surely there were veins riding on the surface now, as she knew that meant Logan was standing—not amused, glowering at them both—in the doorway. _Great, can this get any better?_ her lips pressed and curled inward together in a 'I have nothing to say' action while Logan's glare simmered the air in the room.

"Do you really want to know?" He asked with a gruff sigh, scratching his back against the corner lightly. Alien to Logan's person—for most people who knew him, too—was the sympathy in his blue eyes. He knew what it was like to have lost memories, know their lost, and try your damndest to get them back, only to fail. What was worse was the fact Charles knew far more than he and left him with the residue of only so few that he'd been missing.

"Yes!" there was a fire burning in her eyes that Logan never would have imagined to go there. Lydia had come quite far from the little girl he remembered sobbing in the Alpine's ruins. Stopping her was a lost cause, as she was proving to be even more stubborn and sharp-tongued than he was when Logan himself was cranky. His broad shoulders stooped lightly and he looped an arm around one of her child-like shoulders, leading her away from Hank. They strolled out of the laboratory-like room together and back into a more secure room on a higher floor to discuss the forgotten, Emma falling in line behind them without question as she knew her services were required.

They were finally going to lift the blanket off of her brain, and the fog from her memories.

Hank turned towards the empty doorway connecting him to the rest of the manner and sucked in a small sigh as he listened to the sweet silence. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." the genius murmured in idle amusement as he turned back to his research. A scorned woman she was, too. It should be recorded, also, that "idle hands are the devil's workshop"…this, of course, would give Lydia Keller not one shred of caring until she was on a plane bound for New Orleans. Remy "Ragin' Cajun" LeBeau, also known as Remy "Red Devil" LeBeau would be exemplary for the latter of the two known axioms when he got his hands on her six hours from now.

* * *

_His mouth watered as if he was starved, deranged, and he withered inside for another kiss. Her lips kept slipping out and away from his own while their tongues continued to dance, and he found it harder and harder to hold on to the back of her mocha-haired skull. She wore the dress he so admired on her, the blue one same as the day on the speech her father gave that went amiss. A genteel moan finally flew past her lips as the fabric lost its knot and her black lace bra fell prey to his fingers. The skin was burning beneath his fingers as he finally released the hair clenched so tightly, ten sensuous tips scuttling softly down her skin roused every vein, it seemed, individually to where he could feel the heated pulse of passion thrum beneath his fingertips._

"_Remy," She never ceased to amaze him. Despite the twirl of their tongues in the maelstrom of sickening, beloved heat, Lydia still found the ability to speak. The haunt of his own name was alluring and he finally detached from the terrorized lips, bruised and plump with saliva and the rich colour of lust. His moan answered her as he peeled the dress from her skin, leading the fiery skin scorching his palms into fierce exploration; only two articles left until they were fully thrust into Heaven's pearly gates. As if it didn't even exist, the shirt flew shortly in the air until it crashed to the floor in a crumpled heap of neglect._

_Her fingers masterfully flew along the crevices of his muscles, rampaging down his own molten skin before casting flickering, swimmy golden eyes up at him; poised at the hem of his boxers. He gave her a nod, coaxing the now tight peaks of her teased breasts into knots of pained passion as her fingers stole the article from his skin; loosing it somewhere in the mangled bed sheets twisted complexly by their flailing legs desperate to find the perfect way to fit together. His own fingers returned the action, skimming across the sacred porcelain of her inner thigh and the sheer silky contours of her shapely legs. The only other sign of enjoyment besides his run-amuck sighs—the only way of expelling the thick heat caged within him that suffocated him and pleasured him—was the buck of his hips when she finally clasped his pulsating shaft. Finally, what he'd been dreaming of…something more than the money, yet something so befitting of his precious diamond coddled in his hands._

_He'd made the greatest steal known to man. Her. Finally, she was his._

SMACK! "What the hell?!" Remy shot up, not even two seconds from being pulled out of his delicious dream and hit the floor, weighted down by a spiraled mass of sheet clinging to his foot. Damn. Another dream. Ryan left cackling out of the room for the fourth time that week and scrambled down the stairs of the inn/pub the truly magnanimous Thieves' Guild occupied.

"Damn chile comin' in here and waking me up! Something's wrong with that one." He ran his fingers through his sweat-dampened hair and forced the ecstasy-related residue from his brain, snatching some of his usual clothes out of an armoire south of his large bed and shuffling to the shower room they had in this bedroom. The shower was long and welcomed, and the thief finally left the bathing room dressed in a purple undershirt hiding beneath his trench coat identical to the one he'd left behind, and slowly made his way –dizzily—down the wooden stairs to seat himself at the bar. Anette, one of the older thieves in the guild (his surrogate mother of sorts), smiled and tousled his curly/poufy hair with a loving hand before setting down a waking shot of vodka before him.

"Another wet dream?" She teased, putting her long graying hair up into a more manageable bun as Remy sipped the tiny glass, caressing the sides of it for the light trickle of the sharp sauce as his body tingled with the raw fire of an early drink. Only the older lot of the guild knew just what had happened on his time away, to the younger—newer—faces of the guild told all the marvelous tales of one of the most prevalent thieves ever to be known he whittled it down to "Remy met a real fine lady and had to leave her behind". Anette fixed him another shot as he continued to down them, dousing the questions clawing at him. Really he wasn't even sure why he'd left; Remy knew at the time when he was on the plane and coming home everything _seemed _logical but when he arrived…this, this place he loved…it wasn't home. It was hell, something he never thought he'd call this roof that had been over his head for the longest time.

Mumbling incoherently, which Anette took as a 'yes' she simply shook her head and continued to wipe down the area for any customers that might wander in. Rick, her husband, was out teaching the little ones that had wandered in here, the orphans of the Big Easy, how to survive. Remy had received such similar—if not the same—pick pocketing lessons before so he'd opted out of the running around, casually bumping in to the tourists that flooded the area incessantly, and making off with their loot. Pick pocketing had actually spurred his life of thieving, once he found he was quite adept at the art, but now such meager trips seemed pointless. Everything seemed bland without the enrichment of indulging upon his captive whenever he pleased.

Dreaming sufficed, but not by much. Pangs ripped through him as he awakened from every dream to find that she wasn't next to him. The single card in his deck that smelled like her (kept in a separate pocket from the others that had survived) tormented him, making him feel worse than the vodka on an empty stomach. After his fifth shot Anette snatched the glass from his fingertips and put the plate of eggs and bacon before him, watching her favorite child stare down dismally and in a half-trance as his stomach growled demandingly for the sustenance. "Babe, eat." Remy grudgingly complied, thumbing the King of Hearts all the while and throwing himself in a vortex of the past when he held her so nicely in his arms, drugged and beautiful as ever beneath the thin section of night sky only visible from the window he'd jammed with that card.

Always a tease—the card and his name on her right shoulder, so much more—they were both matched in the area quite well, even if she wasn't front forward about it. He put the dish in the sink, letting it die beneath the sudsy water as the infamous, successful thief withdrew into himself and took the table at the back corner of the residence, hiding in the corner-cloak of darkness. Much like when they both met at _Snake Eye's _and he had to prowl to find her, resulting in a little less than sweet conversation. "Devil's spice." He remembered the fitting nickname and laughed to himself, Rick murmuring something about Remy's "broad problem" as he ate breakfast and lifted three young children not even old enough to be twelve into neighboring stools. Today was the first day of the traditional Mardi Gras celebration so he had to get his "relaxing"—moping and contemplating—done early because he wouldn't feel much like socializing or (again) pick pocketing the new faces as the torrents came in to get an even bigger buzz than what was permitted on the streets.

"_Remy," She whispered succulently, divinely against his ear, "come back upstairs, huh?" the infectious, charming Country Smiler twined her arms around him and stopped the forward walk. He pivoted on the balls of his agile and precisely poised feet to return to her. How could anyone refuse the spice? The Devil, more than anyone, could not refuse a fraction of what made him the epitome of all things wonderful, evil, and worthy of sin. Lydia most certainly was._

_After teasing lips, sharp small teeth, pulled his earlobe and wrapped it in a steamy purred exhale the kisses were dropped along and behind the shell of his ear, creeping down his neck regardless of the warm goose bumps seizing his skin. In an instant, she was gone, perfume pursuing her and dragging him along for the ride as he relented to basic human desire and retreated to lavish her. It was alright, though, this mutual crumbling for the sake of touch…she could reimburse him wonderfully. It was nice to know they drove each other crazy the way they could, and even nicer to know he could curl up with her whenever he wished. "Lead the way, dahlin'. I'm not far behind at all…" he could hear himself laughing in the dream and wondered how it was happening when he felt so different awake and alert, taking refuge in the strong illusion of her tepid contours lying patiently beneath the icy sheets._

"Remy don' like dis…" the Cajun wanted to bash his head, there was no other way to quit the dreams from happening. He felt as if the whole world was set to point and laugh at him, to tell him how big of a fool he was for leaving. These dreams weren't defending him, either, and cut worse than he imagined the spark of pain that had come from the knife on the day of her stabbing. "I'm goin' insane!" his fingers carved thin, hair-fine trails into the table as he screwed his eyes shut. Never was there a sweeter face of torment known by man.

* * *

Six hours of sitting first class wasn't bad on her body, just dull and Lydia was happy to finally be released from the flying cage. Her heels clacked down the ramp as her head buzzed with the memories, Remy's note tucked into the right cup of her bra for safety seeing as how the black dress she donned had absolutely no pockets. After Emma had given back her memories at Logan's request Lydia realized this trip to New Orleans was considered romantically sacred; she had to look nice. Before heading out on the plane she'd stopped by her parent's house to tell them she may not be coming back, that was the only thing she really said to them, and it didn't take much for them to connect the dots – they knew it was going to happen. Love chooses its victims carefully, and Cupid never lets them escape once they've been found.

Once they've finally found each other, it's damn near impossible to think about anything else besides the one that can excite you so. "People do crazy things when they're in love" the plane ride from the safety of the home she'd always known was only a testament to the saying. Her dress of choice, the weapon that fit just like a glove to her skin, was midnight black complete with an open back running rampant with diagonal lace-up straps that gave her a classy look despite the utterly sultry and temptress rating of the dress itself. Actually…the straps were the only thing probably keeping surrounding women already half drunk from calling her a whore, the front being a little generous with the V-cut neck pressing the sides of her kind-of cleavage into view. Matching elbow-length black velvet gloves were thrown on, just because she didn't like the feeling of her bare hands without his, it seemed almost alien and most loathed, as she plucked a mask from a dealer for three bucks; a funny little mask to contribute to the hilarity of Mardi Gras.

Confusing, captivating, and fitting. She chose a purple-winged butterfly means of concealment, just meant to fit over her golden eyes as the black border around the wings brightened the homely color of her orbs. Lydia inhaled silently in the atmosphere, side-stepping lecherous hands and the foam-tipped slosh of alcohol trying to burn her as she finally escaped into a cozy inn/pub type deal that had very few louts in it. Most of them were partying on the street and didn't have the capability of staggering past the total strangers that they would have drunken fun with, one night flings, and share their darkest little secrets with in the haze of alcoholic stupor and outright fun; and the few who were drunk inside here were clutching the tabletop of the bar with a firm hand little by little losing grip. This was a place that screamed 'Remy'. Her banana-yellow eyes flew over the stillness of the pub, nose blocking out the stench of beer and tangy-sweet smell of cologne claiming the bar as an elderly woman looked her up and down with mild confusion and inquired her for lack of knowing why the hell she was standing in the middle of a pub sober.

"I'm looking for someone…" the seductive tone floated out and Lydia absently turned the smile askew as the dimples cued the smile lines definable of the Country Smiler. "A Mr. Remy LeBeau." her golden eyes blinked close in one quiet motion, heating up once more as they were exposed to watch the woman point one fisted hand towards a dark and lonely corner forgotten by the drunkards as she continued cleaning a glass. Lydia felt her heart swell and float high into her chest when she saw him (despite how lonely and drained he appeared, spent and lounging motionlessly against the wooden chair he fell limp in) and seated herself wordlessly at the table. She saw his eyes tear from the ceiling with a blink and he didn't lift his head; this didn't deter her, and she flashed a close-lipped smile, carefully pulling the note from her bra (that made him look, of course, like she thought it would) and flicked it open from its loose folding to drop it lightly in the middle of the table. Remy didn't want to look at the note even though he knew it was his, the one he'd poured his heart into; she was probably just another illusion.

"Hm, you're a little less enthusiastic than I remembered, Mr. LeBeau and that's a true shame because there's something you have to understand about me…" he was finally erect in his chair, staring boredly at the possible-mirage as she grinned the irreplaceable Country Smile famously known to be only used by the Country Smiler. Remy tingled with anticipation. Did she really come all this way to find him, to see him? Her fingers inched towards the obscuring mask and her grin brightened, "I come six hours by plane and I'm not leavin' until I get what I came here for. I get what I work for." the butterfly mask hit the table and Remy imagined he hit his feet even faster in excitement and yearning, the impossible happiness related with long-lost lovers being reunited (or something similar to it). Lydia had really come all the way to New Orleans to see him!

"Got your love letter." She teased, winking at him as Remy brushed his fingers softly down her face. It was alright, after three painful years of wishing, this one was finally real. God how he missed the way she could fill up every sense of his with just a tangible brush. The ability for her to do so was insane to him, but he didn't care. His dry lips were too coarse for her plush ones, but he let the abrasion linger as the passion leaked into his veins; the fire kindling with a dizzying pain, and scraped her tender lips raw with his own.

"This is amazing, no? You…you really came all the way to the Big Easy to see me." He basked in the fact and held her contently in his arms, not hesitating to drop off persuasive kisses to the nape of her neck and lick at the pattern of exposed skin, roping his tongue around or under the straps on the back of her dress.

"Not just to see you…" Lydia whispered, rubbing his leg with her left hand softly. She knew the minute she saw him here in the pub it wouldn't be possible to 'just see him'; she wouldn't be able to leave him again. "I came to stay." her body swiveled to allow her chest to receive the kisses in the decline of the V-neck cut, tipping her head back as she laced her fingers through his missed hair. LeBeau quit the kissing—forced himself to—as he looked up at her to gauge the seriousness of her statement. She really meant it.

His soft and love-sick grin turned up in intensity and went Cheshire towards her, wrapping his arms around her in the full and pressing her against his chest. Her hands were on his chest, allowing her to feel the flex of his muscles as their skin continued to simmer as one piece of desire. "We should…" his eyes flickered up and down her attire, glinting, he rubbed his light chin stubble against her chin and face, "…go catch up."

"I missed you." the soft sigh he'd only dreamed of hearing in his ears was finally released and he fell into the porcelain, marshmallow soft embrace of her.

"I missed you too, dahlin'. More than you can imagine…" Remy kissed her lips, stroking the sinfully soft underside of her chin with a half-curled finger as he smiled against her mouth. "You know," his lips pressed against her ear; feeling the goose bumps overtake her skin, "I counted every kiss we ever had."

"Yeah?" She seemed amused by the fact, and Remy most certainly didn't seem to be doing that with the time that they'd spent together.

"Our average was fifty-two, so given the three years I haven't even felt you…you owe me one hundred and fifty-six kisses, mah dear."

"Right."

"A one-game, one-round of War says we go and start repaying your debt right now."

"You're on." of course, Lydia was going to use the Queen of Hearts tucked into her left cup. She knew Remy would hold little protest due to having to dig the card from the depths of her bra and dress, and smiled victoriously as she laid the card on the table over the note. He could cheat, too. Inside his right-flank pocket, pressed to his abs, lay the coveted King of Hearts he'd jammed her window with on the night that sparked this entire twisted romance. He scooped up the two cards, grinning proudly and ghosting his lips over her ear, sliding them along her neck with the sweet inhale of her skin filling his nostrils.

"King over Queen, I win."


End file.
